Speech Amplification Device Usage for the Management of Hypophonia: A Survey of Speech-Language Pathologists.

Purpose: The purpose of this study was to survey speech-language pathologists (SLPs) who assess and treat people with Parkinson's disease (PD) to gather insights into their decision making regarding their use or potential use of speech amplification technology for the management of hypophonia.

Method: A total of 111 SLPs who were currently practicing in the United States or Canada and had experience working with clients with PD for at least 2 years completed an anonymous Qualtrics survey. Questions were designed to probe the following areas: (a) degree of familiarity with amplification devices as a form of treatment for PD, (b) attitudes and perceptions of the implementation of these devices for PD, and (c) factors that influence the clinical decision to prescribe such devices.

Clinical Insights Into the Use of Speech Amplification Devices for Managing Hypophonia: Interviews With Speech-Language Pathologists.

Purpose: The purpose of this qualitative interview study was to identify themes regarding considerations in the usage of speech amplification device usage for people with Parkinson's disease (PD) and hypophonia from the perspective of speech-language pathologists (SLPs).

Method: Eligible participants included SLPs currently practicing in the United States or Canada with experience working with clients with PD for at least 2 years. Ten SLPs participated in 60-min interviews conducted via Zoom.

Effects of speech rate modifications on phonatory acoustic outcomes in Parkinson's disease.

Speech rate reduction is a global speech therapy approach for speech deficits in Parkinson's disease (PD) that has the potential to result in changes across multiple speech subsystems. While the overall goal of rate reduction is usually improvements in speech intelligibility, not all people with PD benefit from this approach. Speech rate is often targeted as a means of improving articulatory precision, though less is known about rate-induced changes in other speech subsystems that could help or hinder communication.

Effect of Face Masks and Speech Style on Speech Intelligibility and Listener Effort in Parkinson's Disease.

Purpose: The aim of this study was to quantify the combined effects of face masks and effortful speech styles on listener intelligibility and perceived listener effort in talkers with and without Parkinson's disease (PD).

Method: Ten people with PD and 10 healthy, older controls read aloud sentences in two face mask and three speech style conditions. Masks included no mask and KN95 masks.

Acoustic and perceptual impact of face masks on speech: A scoping review.

During the COVID-19 pandemic, personal protective equipment such as facial masks and coverings were mandated all over the globe to protect against the virus. Although the primary aim of wearing face masks is to protect against viral transmission, they pose a potential burden on communication. The purpose of this scoping review was to identify the state of the evidence of the effect of facial coverings on acoustic and perceptual speech outcomes.

A Comparison of Voice Amplifiers and Personal Communication Systems for Hypophonia: An Exploration of Communicative Participation.

Purpose: The primary purpose of this study was to evaluate how individuals with hypophonia (HP; also referred to as HP participants) and their primary communication partners (PCPs; also referred to as PCP participants) rate communicative participation before and after experience with a speech amplification device. A secondary purpose was to evaluate pre- and post-device effects on self-rated communicative participation for each of the three speech amplification devices trialed outside of the laboratory.

Method: Seventeen individuals with HP and their PCPs participated in a crossover design study that compared three different amplification devices: a wired belt-pack amplifier, a wireless stationary amplifier, and a personal frequency modulation (FM) system.

Impact of Face Masks on Speech in Parkinson's Disease: Effect of Clear and Loud Speech Styles.

Purpose: The purpose of this study is to quantify the combined effects of face masks and effortful speech styles on speech intensity, spectral moments, and measures of spectral balance in talkers with Parkinson's disease.

Method: Fifteen people with Parkinson's disease and 15 healthy, older controls read aloud sentences in three face mask conditions and three speech style conditions. Mask conditions included no mask, surgical masks, and KN95 masks.

Predictive language comprehension in Parkinson's disease.

Verb and action knowledge deficits are reported in persons with Parkinson's disease (PD), even in the absence of dementia or mild cognitive impairment. However, the impact of these deficits on combinatorial semantic processing is less well understood. Following on previous verb and action knowledge findings, we tested the hypothesis that PD impairs the ability to integrate event-based thematic fit information during online sentence processing.

The impact of face masks on spectral acoustics of speech: Effect of clear and loud speech styles.

This study quantified the effects of face masks on spectral speech acoustics in healthy talkers using habitual, loud, and clear speaking styles. Harvard sentence lists were read aloud by 17 healthy talkers in each of the 3 speech styles without wearing a mask, when wearing a surgical mask, and when wearing a KN95 mask. Outcome measures included speech intensity, spectral moments, and spectral tilt and energy in mid-range frequencies which were measured at the utterance level.

Speech Rate Mediated Vowel and Stop Voicing Distinctiveness in Parkinson's Disease.

Purpose The purpose of this study was to quantify changes in acoustic distinctiveness in two groups of talkers with Parkinson's disease as they modify across a wide range of speaking rates. Method People with Parkinson's disease with and without deep brain stimulation and older healthy controls read 24 carrier phrases at different speech rates. Target nonsense words in the carrier phrases were designed to elicit stop consonants and corner vowels.

Variation in Speech Intelligibility Ratings as a Function of Speech Rate Modification in Parkinson's Disease.

Purpose The aim of this study was to quantify changes in speech intelligibility in two cohorts of people with Parkinson's disease (PD; those with and without deep brain stimulation [DBS]) across a broad range of self-selected speech rate alterations in (a) read sentences and (b) extemporaneous speech (monologues). Method Four speaker groups participated in this study: younger and older controls, people with PD undergoing standard pharmaceutical treatment, and people with PD and DBS. Naïve listeners rated the intelligibility of read sentences and extemporaneous monologues, spoken by participants at seven self-selected speech rates from very slow to very fast.

A Comparison of Speech Amplification and Personal Communication Devices for Hypophonia.

Purpose This study compared the performance of three amplification devices hypothesized to improve speech communication in individuals with hypophonia (HP), as well as to identify individuals' device preferences. Method Twenty-two individuals with HP and their primary communication partners participated in a cross-over design study comparing three different speech amplification devices: a wired portable amplifier (Device A), a wireless stationary amplifier (Device B), and a one-way personal communication system (Device C). Participants attended one laboratory visit followed by 1-week trial periods with each device.

Efficacy and Acceptance of a Lombard-response Device for Hypophonia in Parkinson's Disease.

Objective: The purpose of this study was to examine the effectiveness, satisfaction, and acceptance of a low-cost Lombard-response (LR) device in a group of individuals with Parkinson's disease (IWPD) and their communication partners (CPs).

Method: Sixteen IWPD and hypophonia and their CPs participated in the study. The IWPD wore a LR device that included a small MP3 player (Sony Walkman) and headphones playing a multi-talker noise audio file at 80 dB during lab-based speech tasks and during their daily conversational speech over a 2-week device trial period.

Effects of Deep Brain Stimulation of the Subthalamic Nucleus Settings on Voice Quality, Intensity, and Prosody in Parkinson's Disease: Preliminary Evidence for Speech Optimization.

Objective: To systematically evaluate how different deep brain stimulation of the subthalamic nucleus (STN-DBS) amplitude, frequency, and pulse-width electrical parameter settings impact speech intensity, voice quality, and prosody of speech in Parkinson's disease (PD).

Methods: Ten individuals with PD receiving bilateral STN-DBS treatments were seen for three baseline and five treatment visits. The five treatment visits involved an examination of the standard clinical settings as well as manipulation of different combinations of frequency (low, mid, and high), pulse width (low, mid, and high), and voltage (low, mid, and high) of stimulation.

Examining Factors Influencing the Viability of Automatic Acoustic Analysis of Child Speech.

Purpose: Heterogeneous child speech was force-aligned to investigate whether (a) manipulating specific parameters could improve alignment accuracy and (b) forced alignment could be used to replicate published results on acoustic characteristics of /s/ production by children.

Method: In Part 1, child speech from 2 corpora was force-aligned with a trainable aligner (Prosodylab-Aligner) under different conditions that systematically manipulated input training data and the type of transcription used. Alignment accuracy was determined by comparing hand and automatic alignments as to how often they overlapped (%-Match) and absolute differences in duration and boundary placements.

Deep Brain Stimulation of the Subthalamic Nucleus Parameter Optimization for Vowel Acoustics and Speech Intelligibility in Parkinson's Disease.

Purpose: The settings of 3 electrical stimulation parameters were adjusted in 12 speakers with Parkinson's disease (PD) with deep brain stimulation of the subthalamic nucleus (STN-DBS) to examine their effects on vowel acoustics and speech intelligibility.

Method: Participants were tested under permutations of low, mid, and high STN-DBS frequency, voltage, and pulse width settings. At each session, participants recited a sentence.