Motor speech signature of behavioral variant frontotemporal dementia: Refining the phenotype.

Objective: To provide a comprehensive description of motor speech function in behavioral variant frontotemporal dementia (bvFTD).

Methods: Forty-eight individuals (24 bvFTD and 24 age- and sex-matched healthy controls) provided speech samples. These varied in complexity and thus cognitive demand.

Motor Speech Phenotypes of Frontotemporal Dementia, Primary Progressive Aphasia, and Progressive Apraxia of Speech.

Purpose: Our purpose was to create a comprehensive review of speech impairment in frontotemporal dementia (FTD), primary progressive aphasia (PPA), and progressive apraxia of speech in order to identify the most effective measures for diagnosis and monitoring, and to elucidate associations between speech and neuroimaging.

Method: Speech and neuroimaging data described in studies of FTD and PPA were systematically reviewed. A meta-analysis was conducted for speech measures that were used consistently in multiple studies.

Treatment for speech disorder in Friedreich ataxia and other hereditary ataxia syndromes.

Background: Hereditary ataxia syndromes can result in significant speech impairment, a symptom thought to be responsive to treatment. The type of speech impairment most commonly reported in hereditary ataxias is dysarthria. Dysarthria is a collective term referring to a group of movement disorders affecting the muscular control of speech.

Nasality in Friedreich ataxia.

Perceptual speech research in Friedreich ataxia (FRDA) has identified altered nasality as a key component of the dysarthria profile, however the incidence and severity of abnormal nasality remains unknown. Utilizing objective and perceptual methods, data on the relationship between resonance, disease duration, severity, age of onset and genetic profiles were collated. Thirty-seven participants with FRDA and 24 healthy controls provided contemporaneous speech samples for perceptual analysis, and single word samples for acoustic analysis.