Detection of Subclinical Motor Speech Deficits after Presumed Low-Grade Glioma Surgery.

Motor speech performance was compared before and after surgical resection of presumed low-grade gliomas. This pre- and post-surgery study was conducted on 15 patients (mean age = 41) with low-grade glioma classified based on anatomic features. Repetitions of /pa/, /ta/, /ka/, and /pataka/ recorded before and 3 months after surgery were analyzed regarding rate and regularity.

Effect of expiratory muscle strength training on voice and speech: An exploratory study in persons with Parkinson's disease or multiple sclerosis.

Purpose: This study explored how respiration, voice, and speech were affected following expiratory muscle strength training (EMST) and maintenance training in persons with Parkinson's disease (PD) or multiple sclerosis (MS).

Method: Nine participants with PD and six with MS participated in a randomised study, where the effects of EMST, sham, and maintenance treatment were investigated. Outcome measures included maximum expiratory pressure (MEP); maximum phonation time (MPT); intelligibility; verbal diadochokinesis (DDK); speech rate; a self-report form on voice, speech, and communication; and open questions about how the participants experienced the intervention.

Disfluencies in spontaneous speech in persons with low-grade glioma before and after surgery.

Impaired lexical retrieval is common in persons with low-grade glioma (LGG). Several studies have reported a discrepancy between subjective word-finding difficulties and results on formal tests. Analysis of spontaneous speech might be more sensitive to signs of word-finding difficulties, hence we aimed to explore disfluencies in a spontaneous-speech task performed by participants with presumed LGG before and after surgery.

Qualifications, professional roles and service practices of nurses, occupational therapists and speech-language pathologists in the management of adults with oropharyngeal dysphagia: a Nordic survey.

Purpose: To identify the qualifications, professional roles and service practices of nurses, occupational therapists (OTs) and speech-language pathologists (SLPs) in the management of adults with oropharyngeal dysphagia (OD) in the Nordic countries.

Methods: A web-based survey was developed that consisted of 50 questions on respondent demographics, education, experience, roles and service practices provided for adults with OD. The survey was distributed to practicing nurses, OTs, and SLPs in five Nordic countries via professional associations, social media, online networks and snowballing.

Experiences of language and communication after brain-tumour treatment: A long-term follow-up after glioma surgery.

The purpose of this study was to explore how persons having received various treatments for glioma, a type of brain tumour, experience their language, speech, and communication in everyday life. Twelve persons with low-grade glioma and one with high-grade glioma who had undergone tumour resection in 2014-2016 in different tumour locations were interviewed using a semi-structured protocol. The video-recorded interviews were transcribed and analysed using qualitative content analysis, which revealed three manifest categories, nine sub-categories and one latent theme.

Prevalence of Oropharyngeal Dysphagia in Adults in Different Healthcare Settings: A Systematic Review and Meta-analyses.

Oropharyngeal dysphagia (OD) is prevalent in the elderly and persons with complex medical conditions, resulting in considerable medical and psychosocial consequences and reduced quality of life. Many prevalence studies regard OD in relation to age or diagnosis. Knowledge on the prevalence of OD in different healthcare settings is lacking.

Word-finding difficulties in Parkinson's disease: Complex verbal fluency, executive functions and other influencing factors.

Background: Persons with Parkinson's disease (PD) frequently report word-finding difficulties. Many of the established tests are, however, insufficient in detecting mild cases of such symptoms. Results from earlier research have suggested that controlled oral word association tests (COWATs) with high demands on cognitive processing resources could prove helpful in detecting the more subtle (language-related) problems seen in neurological disorders such as PD.

Speech Function Following Deep Brain Stimulation of the Caudal Zona Incerta: Effects of Habitual and High-Amplitude Stimulation.

Purpose Deep brain stimulation (DBS) is often successful in alleviating motor symptoms of essential tremor (ET); however, DBS may also induce adverse speech effects. The caudal zona incerta (cZi) is a promising DBS target for tremor, but less is known about the consequences of cZi DBS for speech. This preliminary study examined how habitual cZi DBS and cZi stimulation at high amplitudes may affect speech function in persons with ET.

Assessment of speech impairment in patients with Parkinson's disease from acoustic quantifications of oral diadochokinetic sequences.

This investigation aimed at determining whether an acoustic quantification of the oral diadochokinetic (DDK) task may be used to predict the perceived level of speech impairment when speakers with Parkinson's disease (PD) are reading a standard passage. DDK sequences with repeated [pa], [ta], and [ka] syllables were collected from 108 recordings (68 unique speakers with PD), along with recordings of the speakers reading a standardized text. The passage readings were assessed in five dimensions individually by four speech-language pathologists in a blinded and randomized procedure.

The Effects of Deep Brain Stimulation on Speech Intelligibility in Persons With Essential Tremor.

Purpose The aim of this study was to investigate how deep brain stimulation (DBS) of the caudal zona incerta (cZi) affects speech intelligibility in persons with essential tremor. Method Thirty-five participants were evaluated: off stimulation, on chronic stimulation optimized to alleviate tremor, and during unilateral stimulation at increasing amplitude levels. At each stimulation condition, the participants read 10 unique nonsense sentences from the Swedish Test of Intelligibility.

Self-Reported Changes in Cognition, Communication and Swallowing in Multiple Sclerosis: Data from the Swedish Multiple Sclerosis Registry and from a National Survey.

Purpose: The aim of this study was to investigate self-reported cognition, speech, communication and swallowing changes in a large sample of individuals with multiple sclerosis (MS) in Sweden. A second aim was to update information about speech and language pathology (SLP) services received by people with MS (pwMS).

Method: Self-ratings of cognition, speech/communication and swallowing registered by pwMS between 2012 and 2018 were retrieved from the Swedish MS Registry.

Communicative Participation in People with Amyotrophic Lateral Sclerosis.

Background: Communication is affected in most people with amyotrophic lateral sclerosis (ALS); up to 80-95% will reach a point where they are no longer able to meet their communicative needs with natural speech. The deterioration of speech and communicative abilities presumably has an impact on communicative participation. However, little is known about how these factors relate to each other in this population of patients.

Cultural adaptation and validation of the Norwegian version of the swallowing quality of life questionnaire (SWAL-QOL).

Introduction: Oropharyngeal dysphagia (OD) is a disorder that can have devastating and long lasting effects on a person's medical, mental and psychosocial well-being, thus negatively impacting quality of life. There is currently no validated dysphagia-specific quality of life instrument in Norway. This project aims to evaluate the psychometric properties of the culturally adapted Norwegian version of SWAL-QOL (Nor-SWAL-QOL).

How Well Does Diadochokinetic Task Performance Predict Articulatory Imprecision? Differentiating Individuals with Parkinson's Disease from Control Subjects.

Objective: To investigate whether syllables produced in an oral diadochokinetic (DDK) task may be quantified so that persons with Parkinson's disease (PD) perceived to have reduced articulatory precision when reading may be correctly identified using that quantification.

Patients And Methods: Syllable sequences from 38 speakers with PD and 38 gender- and age-matched control speakers (normal controls [NC]) were quantified acoustically and evaluated in terms of (1) the speakers' ability to accurately predict speaker group membership (PD or NC) and (2) their ability to predict reduced/non-reduced articulatory precision.

Results: A balanced accuracy of 80-93% in predicting speaker group membership was achieved.

An Investigation of the Clinical Use of a Single-Word Procedure to Assess Intelligibility (Swedish Test of Intelligibility for Children) and an Evaluation of the Validity and Reliability of the Intelligibility in Context Scale.

Purpose Intelligibility is a core concept of speech-language pathology, central both to the assessment of speech disorders and to intervention in such disorders. One purpose of this study was to investigate the reliability and usability of a single-word assessment procedure, the Swedish Test of Intelligibility for Children (STI-CH), in a clinical setting. Another purpose was to investigate the validity and reliability of an assessment method designed to assess functional intelligibility: the Intelligibility in Context Scale (ICS).

Assessment of voice, speech and communication changes associated with cervical spinal cord injury.

Background: Respiratory muscle impairment following cervical spinal cord injury (CSCI) may lead to reduced voice function, although the individual variation is large. Voice problems in this population may not always receive attention since individuals with CSCI face other, more acute and life-threatening issues that need/receive attention. Currently there is no consensus on the tasks suitable to identify the specific voice impairments and functional voice changes experienced by individuals with CSCI.

Writing fluency in patients with low-grade glioma before and after surgery.

Background: Low-grade glioma (LGG) is a type of brain tumour often situated in or near areas involved in language, sensory or motor functions. Depending on localization and tumour characteristics, language or cognitive impairments due to tumour growth and/or surgical resection are obvious risks. One task that may be at risk is writing, both because it requires intact language and memory function and because it is a very complex and cognitively demanding task.

Speech and Communication Changes Reported by People with Parkinson's Disease.

Background: Changes in communicative functions are common in Parkinson's disease (PD), but there are only limited data provided by individuals with PD on how these changes are perceived, what their consequences are, and what type of intervention is provided.

Aim: To present self-reported information about speech and communication, the impact on communicative participation, and the amount and type of speech-language pathology services received by people with PD.

Methods: Respondents with PD recruited via the Swedish Parkinson's Disease Society filled out a questionnaire accessed via a Web link or provided in a paper version.

Pre-operative language ability in patients with presumed low-grade glioma.

In patients with low-grade glioma (LGG), language deficits are usually only found and investigated after surgery. Deficits may be present before surgery but to date, studies have yielded varying results regarding the extent of this problem and in what language domains deficits may occur. This study therefore aims to explore the language ability of patients who have recently received a presumptive diagnosis of low-grade glioma, and also to see whether they reported any changes in their language ability before receiving treatment.

Signs of dysarthria in adults with 22q11.2 deletion syndrome.

The aim of the study was to investigate how adults with 22q11.2 deletion syndrome (22q11DS) performed on dysarthria and intelligibility tests compared with a control group. Ten participants with confirmed 22q11.

Improving medical students' knowledge and skill in communicating with people with acquired communication disorders.

Purpose: To explore the effects of an interactive workshop on medical students' knowledge and skill in communicating with people with acquired communication disorders.

Method: Sixty-nine medical students received a lecture on acquired communication disorders. Thirty-six of these students also participated in a workshop where they practised using supportive strategies in interaction with a simulated patient with aphasia.

High-level language ability in healthy individuals and its relationship with verbal working memory.

The aims of the study were to investigate healthy subjects' performance on a clinical test of high-level language (HLL) and how it is related to demographic characteristics and verbal working memory (VWM). One hundred healthy subjects (20-79 years old) were assessed with the Swedish BeSS test (Laakso, Brunnegård, Hartelius, & Ahlsén, 2000) and two digit span tasks. Relationships between the demographic variables, VWM and BeSS were investigated both with bivariate correlations and multiple regression analysis.

Participant characteristics and observed support in conversations involving people with communication disorders.

Purpose: Communication partner training is an increasingly common approach to improve the possibilities for people with communication disorders to participate in everyday interaction. So far, though, little is known about what conversation partner characteristics might influence the ability to be a supportive partner in conversation. The current study explored possible associations between the observed skill to support a person with communication difficulties in conversation and the following characteristics of the conversation partner; executive function, inference ability, age, education level and relationship to the person with communication disorder.

Teaching medical students about communication in speech-language disorders: Effects of a lecture and a workshop.

Purpose: This study aims to explore the effects of an interactive workshop involving speech-language pathology students on medical students' knowledge about communication in relation to speech-language disorders.

Method: Fifty-nine medical students received a lecture about speech-language disorders. Twenty-six of them also participated in a workshop on communication with patients with speech-language disorders.

On the diverse outcome of communication partner training of significant others of people with aphasia: an experimental study of six cases.

Background: Communication partner training (CPT) has been shown to improve the communicative environment of people with aphasia. Interaction-focused training is one type of training that provides an individualized intervention to participants. Although shown to be effective, outcomes have mostly been evaluated in non-experimental case studies.