Dysarthria

About: Dysarthria is a research topic. Over the lifetime, 2402 publications have been published within this topic receiving 56554 citations.

Everyday speech production assessment measure (e-spam): reliability and validity

Abstract: OF THESIS THE EVERYDAY SPEECH PRODUCTION ASSESSMENT MEASURE (E-SPAM): RELIABILITY AND VALIDITY Purpose: The Everyday Speech Production Assessment Measure (E-SPAM) is a novel test for assessing changes in clients‟ speech production skills after intervention. This study provides information on reliability and validity for the test and overviews its clinical application. Method & Procedures: E-SPAM, oral reading, and sequential motion rate tasks were administered to 15 participants with motor speech disorders (MSDs). E-SPAM responses were scored using a 5-point system by four graduate students to assess interscorer and temporal reliability and to determine validity for E-SPAM. Results: Findings of this study indicate that the E-SPAM can be scored with sufficient reliability for clinical use, yields stable scores on repeat administrations, and that its results correlate highly with other accepted measures of speech production ability, specifically sentence intelligibility and severity. Conclusions: While the results of this study must be considered preliminary because of the small sample size, it does appear that the E-SPAM can provide information about aspects of speech production such as intelligibility, efficiency, and speech naturalness, that are important when treatment focuses on improving speech. The E-SPAM also appears to be a “clinician-friendly” test as it is quick to administer and score and can be administered to patients across the severity continuum.

Assessment of Acquired Neurogenic Communication Disorders in Adults using a Telerehabilitation Application

Abstract: Telerehabilitation, which is the provision of rehabilitation services at a distance, hasbeen proposed as a service delivery model with the potential to address some of the issues ofequitable access and quality of care currently facing the discipline of rehabilitation. Onerehabilitation discipline which is well suited to telerehabilitation is speech-languagepathology. However, a paucity of research into the delivery of speech-language pathologyservices via telerehabilitation has limited the implementation of this mode of service delivery.In an attempt to add empirical data to the body of research and move towards thedevelopment of evidence-based guidelines for the practice of telerehabilitation in speechlanguagepathology, this series of studies aimed to determine the validity and reliability of theassessment of acquired neurogenic communication disorders in adults via telerehabilitationmethods.A total of 86 adults with an acquired neurogenic communication disorder participatedin this research. Participants were grouped according to their dominant communicationdisorder resulting in four study cohorts, dysarthria (n = 19 and 24), aphasia (n = 32) andapraxia of speech (n = 11). A series of studies investigated the validity and reliability oftelerehabilitation assessment of each cohort, in comparison to traditional face-to-faceassessment. Participants were assessed using standardised and/or informal assessment toolscommonly used in speech-language pathology clinics. A custom-built telerehabilitationsystem utilizing low bandwidth Internet Protocol (IP) connections was used during thetelerehabilitation assessments. This bandwidth was chosen as it is consistent with theminimum bandwidth connection available in Queensland Health facilities, including those inregional and remote areas.Overall, the findings presented in this thesis served to establish the validity andreliability of assessing acquired neurogenic communication disorders in adults viatelerehabilitation. The results provide evidence that the use of standardised and informalassessment tools in a telerehabilitation environment allow for the accurate description ofaphasia and apraxia of speech in adults. While high levels of agreement for the assessment ofdysarthria were also established, the low agreement between the speech-language pathologists(SLPs) for the diagnosis of type of dysarthria was unexpected. It was considered that thisdiscrepancy was a result of differences between the SLPs rather than an effect of thetelerehabilitation assessment. Reliability within the telerehabilitation assessment environmentwas established for dysarthria and aphasia; however, reliability was not confirmed for apraxiaof speech due to restricted sample size, highlighting the need for further research within thispopulation.Previous research had suggested that the severity of the presenting communicationdisorder may have implications for telerehabilitation assessment in speech pathology. Suchconcerns regarding the effects of severity of communication disorder upon the accuracy of thetelerehabilitation assessment were resolved in the case of severe aphasia. However, furtherresearch into the effects of severe apraxia of speech upon the ability to use telerehabilitationassessment methods was recommended.Continued research to firmly establish the validity and reliability of assessing acquiredneurogenic communication disorders via telerehabilitation, with the goal of developingevidence-based guidelines for the use of telerehabilitation in speech pathology was recognisedas an imperative direction for future research. Furthermore, the potential for telerehabilitationmethods to expand and inform traditional rehabilitation research and practices was suggested.

Automatic And Perceptual Discrimination Between Dysarthria, Apraxia of Speech, and Neurotypical Speech

Abstract: Automatic techniques in the context of motor speech disorders (MSDs) are typically two-class techniques aiming to discriminate between dysarthria and neurotypical speech or between dysarthria and apraxia of speech (AoS). Further, although such techniques are proposed to support the perceptual assessment of clinicians, the automatic and perceptual classification accuracy has never been compared. In this paper, we investigate a three-class automatic technique and a set of handcrafted features for the discrimination of dysarthria, AoS and neurotypical speech. Instead of following the commonly used One-versus-One or One-versus-Rest approaches for multi-class classification, a hierarchical approach is proposed. Further, a perceptual study is conducted where speech and language pathologists are asked to listen to recordings of dysarthria, AoS, and neurotypical speech and decide which class the recordings belong to. The proposed automatic technique is evaluated on the same recordings and the automatic and perceptual classification performance are compared. The presented results show that the hierarchical classification approach yields a higher classification accuracy than baseline One-versus-One and One-versus-Rest approaches. Further, the presented results show that the automatic approach yields a higher classification accuracy than the perceptual assessment of speech and language pathologists, demonstrating the potential advantages of integrating automatic tools in clinical practice.

Analysis of speech-language pathology students’ knowledge regarding the use of non-speech oral motor exercises (NSOMEs) in clinical practice: An exploratory pilot study

Abstract: The use of non-speech oral motor exercises (NSOMEs) in some areas of speech-language pathology (SLP) clinical practice has been debated in the literature. It is unknown if graduating SLP students have a clear understanding regarding appropriate NSOME use. This study aimed to explore SLP students’ knowledge and experiences regarding the use of NSOMEs in the SLP management of (1) dysphagia, (2) tongue thrust swallowing, (3) dysarthria, (4) childhood apraxia of speech (CAS) with a co-occurring oral apraxia, (5) CAS without a co-occurring oral apraxia, (6) articulation disorders, and (7) phonological disorders. An online questionnaire was completed by 51 SLP students in their final year of study. Students reported to have observed or used NSOMEs in each of the seven practice areas. While only five students (9.8%) reported knowledge of NSOME use that was inconsistent with the current evidence-base recommendations for speech production, students lacked clarity regarding appropriate NSOME use in each of the prac...