Journal of Medical Speech - Language Pathology articles from December 2008

Journal of Medical Speech - Language Pathology archives from December 2008

Preface to special issue.(Conference notes)
December 1, 2008... Since 1982, the Conference on Motor Speech has provided clinicians and researchers the opportunity to learn and perhaps to change. This special issue of the Journal of Medical Speech-Language Pathology includes 17 articles based on work...

Speech-to-noise levels and conversational intelligibility in hypophonia and Parkinson's disease.(Clinical report)
December 1, 2008... The present study examined the effect of multitalker background noise on speech-to-noise levels and conversational speech intelligibility in individuals with hypophonia due to Parkinson's disease (PD). Twenty-five participants with hypophonia...

Temporal and spatial variability in speakers with Parkinson's disease and Friedreich's ataxia.
December 1, 2008... Speech variability in groups of speakers with Parkinson's disease (PD) and with Friedreich's (FA) ataxia was compared with healthy controls. Speakers repeated the same phrase 20 times at one of two rates (fast or habitual). A nonlinear analysis...

Treatment of severe childhood apraxia of speech in a 12-year-old male with CHARGE association.
December 1, 2008... This study employed a single subject, multiple baseline across behaviors design to examine the effects of dynamic temporal and tactile cueing (DTTC). The participant is a 12-year-old male with CHARGE association, a complex genetic disorder. He...

Levels of speech usage: a self-report scale for describing how people use speech.(Clinical report)
December 1, 2008... People use speech in a variety of ways to fulfill life roles and responsibilities. Documenting speech usage is critical in clinical work to plan relevant intervention goals for individual clients, and in clinical research to better describe...

Formant steadiness: treatment-related changes in speakers with hypokinetic dysarthria.
December 1, 2008... This study was designed to investigate the effect of intensive voice reatment (Lee Silverman Voice Treatment [R]) on formant steadiness in 10 speakers with hypokinetic dysarthria associated with idiopathic Parkinson's disease and parkinsonian...

Speech intelligibility in a speaker with idiopathic Parkinson's disease before and after treatment.(Clinical report)
December 1, 2008... A speaker with hypokinetic dysarthria secondary to idiopathic Parkinson's disease (PD) was studied before and after Lee Silverman Voice Treatment (LSVT [R]) to evaluate treatment-related changes in intelligibility of connected speech. He...

Automatic landmark analysis of dysarthric speech.
December 1, 2008... The present study sought to characterize dysarthric speech in terms of acoustic landmarks. Landmark analysis provides a means to relate acoustic events to underlying articulatory behavior thereby allowing for comparisons between highly...

Madonna Expiratory Respiratory Trainer (MERT): a self-practice device for improving the control of alveolar pressure (technical note).
December 1, 2008... Reduced respiratory drive for speech occurs in conjunction with a range of neurological conditions. Traditional interventions to increase respiratory drive may include laryngeal aerodynamic instrumentation, manometers, or use of a "blow bottle"...

Using motor learning guided theory and augmentative and alternative communication to improve speech production in profound apraxia: a case example.(Case study)
December 1, 2008... A 49-year-old man with profound apraxia of speech and moderate nonfluent aphasia participated in a two-pronged treatment that combined the motor learning guided (MLG) approach for apraxia of speech and augmentative and alternative communication...

Can IOPI be used to measure tongue pressure for speech sounds?(Iowa Oral Performance Instrument )
December 1, 2008... Tongue pressure during speech is of great interest to researchers of normal and disordered speech. Currently, the best devices for measuring pressure during speech require implantation of transducers into palatal appliances constructed for each...

Intelligibility and attitudes toward a speech synthesizer vocoded using dysarthric vocalizations.(Clinical report)
December 1, 2008... Speakers with dysarthria who use augmentative and alternative communication (AAC) aids may rely on text-to-speech (TTS) synthesis as their means of interaction. Despite a variety of voices, clinicians tend to use the adult male voice given its...

Assessment of orofacial strength in patients with dysarthria.
December 1, 2008... Assessment of orofacial weakness is common during the evaluation of patients with suspected dysarthria. This study addressed the validity of clinical assessments of orofacial eakness by comparing clinical (subjective) ratings to instrumental...

Effects of cognitive-linguistic load on parameters of gait in Parkinson disease.(Clinical report)
December 1, 2008... Multitasking has become a way of life, from operating multiple software packages simultaneously on a computer, to carrying on a conversation on a cell phone while driving. Perhaps one of the most common dual tasks that we perform is talking...

Influence of amplification on word intelligibility and phonetic contrast errors in dysarthria.(Clinical report)
December 1, 2008... Voice amplification can improve speech intelligibility when only reduced loudness underlies the intelligibility deficit (Adams, 1997). However, a recent study by Cariski and Rosenbek (1999) documented amplification-based improvements in speech...

Treating festinating speech with altered auditory feedback in Parkinson's disease: a preliminary report.(Clinical report)
December 1, 2008... Advanced speech symptoms in Parkinson's disease (PD), such as "festinating speech" or palilalia and frequent hesitations, are a clinical challenge. This preliminary report is part of a larger study testing the hypothesis that the use of altered...

Special Panel Session: Driving Critical Initiatives in Motor Speech.(Conference notes)
December 1, 2008... This article is a summary of the Special Panel Session, titled "Driving Critical Initiatives in Motor Speech," that was conducted at the Conference on Motor Speech, March 2008, in Monterey, California. Don Finan (Program Chair for Speech Motor...

Use of prosody by children with severe dysarthria: a Cantonese extension study.
December 1, 2008... Several recent studies have shown that speakers with severe dysarthria can make use of prosody to communicate intentions. Patel and Salata (2006) investigated the abilities of five children with severe dysarthria to convey three pitch levels...