View clinical trials related to Speech.
Filter by:These studies test the hypothesis that sensory areas of the brain participate in the consolidation of speech motor memory by using transcranial magnetic stimulation to suppress activity in somatosensory and auditory cortex following adaptation in order to block retention of learning.
The Investigators aim to identify speech and language markers that provide information on cognitive function and predict cognitive decline in Parkinson's disease. The Investigators will administer speech tasks and cognitive assessments to participants with Parkinson's disease and healthy controls. The Investigators will also explore the associations between genetic factors and speech and cognitive status in Parkinson's disease.
Participation in contact sports is linked to an increased risk of dental injuries. To reduce the risk and severity of sports-related dental injuries, mouthguards are often recommended to be worn during training and competition. However, athletes often complain that they cannot talk properly when using mouthguards. It is hypothesized that speech performance differs when using different types of mouthguards. A group of female national rugby players will be asked to pronounce four Malay words with plosive sounds (/p/, /b/, /d/ and /t/) repeatedly in three conditions: (i) when not using any mouthguard, (ii) when using 'boil and bite' mouthguard, and (iii) when using custom-fitted mouthguard. The sounds will be recorded for spectrographic analysis. The difference in mean voice onset time between conditions will be assessed.
Ventilation is a major treatment of respiratory failure due to neuromuscular disorders. First line treatment is noninvasive ventilation (NIV) but in some situations, especially in case of NIV inefficiency, invasive ventilation with tracheostomy (IVT) may be required. In both situations, patients may become dependent on ventilatory support with the disease evolution. Ventilation then can interfere speech and the quality of communication of the patients. Modification of the ventilation parameters may result in improved speech quality (for example, positive expiratory pressure (PEP) while not necessary for ventilation quality can dramatically improve speech in tracheostomized patients). Therefore, it would be of interest to allow patients to benefit from these specific parameters when they need to speak without maintaining them when patients are not speaking. We want to evaluate a specific ventilator feature which can detect speech and switch to specific ventilation parameters adapted for speech We believe that this feature will improve significantly speech quality in patients dependant either on NIV or IVT.
Patients with tracheostomy who are on and off of mechanical ventilation initially lose the ability to speak, and the use of one-way speaking valves (OWSV) is one method of restoring speech in these patients. Patients with tracheostomy who experience loss of speech report frustration and feelings of confinement from patients' communication impairment, therefore investigators would like to restore speech in these patients as soon as it is safe to do so. However, there is currently little known in the literature about the timing of the use of OWSV in patients with tracheostomy. Therefore, the investigators propose a pre-test post-test clinical trial pilot study to investigate the safety of early use of OWSV in patients undergoing a percutaneous tracheostomy. Study aims are to identify patients who would benefit from the early use of OWSV and to determine the effects of early use of OWSV on speech and clinical outcomes. To achieve these aims, patients who undergo percutaneous tracheostomy will be screened, and patients meeting screening criteria will be randomized into intervention and control groups. The intervention group will receive early speech-language pathology (SLP) evaluation and OWSV trial at 12-24 hours following tracheostomy procedure, and the control group will receive standard SLP evaluation and OWSV trial at 48-60 hours following tracheostomy procedure. Intervention and control groups will been compared on speech and clinical outcomes measures from pre-test at 12-24 hours following tracheostomy and post-test at 48-60 hours following tracheostomy and characteristics of patients who successfully tolerate early OWSV use will be identified.
Parkinson's disease (PD) affects between 1% and 2% of the world's population aged 60 and older; in Europe the prevalence is around 150 PD patients per 100,000 individuals. PD is classically characterized by a symptomatic triad that includes rest tremor, akinesia and hypertonia and although the motor expression of the symptoms involves mainly the limbs, the muscles implicated in speech production are also subject to specific dysfunctions. Motor speech disorders, so-called dysarthria, can thus be developed by PD patients. The main objective of our project is to evaluate the physiological parameters (acoustics), perceptual markers (intelligibility) and psychosocial impact of dysarthric speech in PD, in the context of language (French vs. Portuguese) modulations. Acoustic parameters are expected to be physiologically-based, linked with the motoric aspects of dysarthric speech. The same degree of impairment of such parameters should be associated with the pathology and be present universally in all patients, even if they speak different languages; that should be also the case of prosodic markers, whereas impairment of speech intelligibility may participate to the psychosocial impact in communication alteration. PD patients will be enrolled in the study in Aix-en-Provence (N = 60) and Lisbon (N = 60). Their global motor disability will be assessed with dedicated clinical rating scales, without (off) and with (on) pharmacological treatment. Two groups of 60 healthy age-matched volunteers will provide the normal reference for between-group comparisons. Along with the off and on medication clinical examinations, several speech tasks will be recorded. Moreover, speech organ functions will also be assessed during the same examination. The psychosocial impact of dysarthria will be evaluated via self-questionnaires; it will be analysed a posteriori, as well as the speech intelligibility evaluation, and both will strengthen the overall speech assessments. This global investigation will represent a unique opportunity to provide the most precise and reliable description of PD patients' speech and its impacts on intelligibility and quality of life. Challenging and interdisciplinary aspects are combined in our project, which original cross-linguistic approach involves an international collaboration definitely new in the field of motor speech disorders.