View clinical trials related to Speech Disorders.
Filter by:Speech therapy in children with a palate deals with two scientific challenges that will be addressed in this project. The first challenge is selecting the best speech approach for a child with a specific cleft speech characteristic (CSC). Many speech therapists use a 'one-size-fits-all' approach to treat compensatory CSCs resulting in poor short- and long-term speech outcomes. To increase the effectiveness and quality of cleft speech care, it is necessary to find the best match between a specific therapy and a given type of CSC. Therefore, this proposal will compare the effect of 3 different speech approaches on the speech and quality of life in Dutch speaking children with different types of CSCs. The second challenge is selecting the best speech approach to enhance long-term learning and transfer of newly established speech skills to untrained consonants. To date, research mainly focused on immediate therapy effects. It is unknown if permanent speech changes occur. Hence, this project will also investigate the short-term and long-term learning effects (retention and transfer) of the different speech approaches from the first objective. This proposal will improve evidence-based and patient-tailored cleft speech therapy.
The goal of this longitudinal study is to learn more about the articulatory consequences of surgical oral cancer treatment. The main aims are to study the coordination and development of speech articulation of patients who will undergo surgical treatment for oral cancer longitudinally and whether individual differences in the reliance on auditory or tactile information can predict the success of speech compensatory strategies. Participants will perform multiple speech tasks while motion tracking sensors track the articulatory gestures.
Verbal fluency test require to produce as much words as possible in one or two minutes. This test is highly sensitive to main brain diseases and are therefore widely used in clinical routine for diagnostic purpose. The verbal fluency task requires several cognitive processes including executive and linguistic processes for which it is difficult to extract the origin of the deficit. For this reason, fluency tests are variably interpreted in terms of executive or language. The implementation of an experimental protocol exploring each of these processes separately and studying the links between the verbal fluency task and each of these processes should allow a better understanding of the origin of the verbal fluency deficit after brain injury and improve the identification of key brain structures. Indeed, the lesion determinants of this task remain to be clarified despite remarkable advances due to the evolution of imaging techniques (voxel-based lesion-symptom mapping (VLSM); voxel-based morphometry (VBM)). Furthermore, while the direct assessment of linguistic process, semantic memory, and processing speed is well defined, the examination of the executive component (i.e., strategic search process) remains unsettled and will be undertaken in this study. This work will take advantage of data from previous multicenter work, validated methodologies for both analysis and interpretation of cognitive performance as well as anatomic-clinical correlations at the voxel level and will be performed in cognitive neurodegenerative and cerebrovascular disease.
Difficulties with speech and language are the first and most notable symptoms of primary progressive aphasia (PPA). While there is evidence that demonstrates positive effects of speech-language treatment for individuals with PPA who only speak one language (monolinguals), there is a significant need for investigating the effects of treatment that is optimized for bilingual speakers with PPA. This stage 2 efficacy clinical trial seeks to establish the effects of culturally and linguistically tailored speech-language interventions administered to bilingual individuals with PPA. The overall aim of the intervention component of this study is to establish the relationships between the bilingual experience (e.g., how often each language is used, how "strong" each language is) and treatment response of bilinguals with PPA. Specifically, the investigators will evaluate the benefits of tailored speech-language intervention administered in both languages to bilingual individuals with PPA (60 individuals will be recruited). The investigators will conduct an assessment before treatment, after treatment and at two follow-ups (6 and 12-months post-treatment) in both languages. When possible, a structural scan of the brain (magnetic resonance image) will be collected before treatment in order to identify if brain regions implicated in bilingualism are associated with response to treatment. In addition to the intervention described herein, 30 bilingual individuals with PPA will be recruited to complete behavioral cognitive-linguistic testing and will not receive intervention. Results will provide important knowledge about the neural mechanisms of language re-learning and will address how specific characteristics of bilingualism influence cognitive reserve and linguistic resilience in PPA.
Factors related to successful rehabilitation are often directly related to adherence; for instance, dosage, frequency, and intensity can burden the patient regarding time and motivational factors. Furthermore, surrounding salience, patients may lose interest or find an intervention boring after a few sessions. It is well documented that nonadherence not only impacts rehabilitation for the patient but can also further prolong treatment, and increase hospital and clinician costs, in addition to a higher prevalence of future comorbidities. Therefore, strategies that improve patient adherence can significantly help optimize patient care and treatment outcomes. One avenue to increase patient adherence is through the gamification of rehabilitation therapies using virtual reality (VR). Gamification of rehabilitation therapy can make mass practice required in rehabilitation therapies seemingly fun and more personally engaging for the patient. Additionally, the immersive experience achieved through VR can further promote salience and be customizable to individual patient requirements. As VR systems are now highly portable and relatively simple to utilize, they can provide an excellent opportunity to continue rehabilitation practice on the home front. Overall, the VR gamification of rehabilitation may increase adherence by shifting patients' perspectives of therapy as tedious, boring, or a hassle, to a fun and engaging game that ultimately helps their recovery processes. The GlenXRose VR-delivered speech-language therapies (Cognitive Projections Lab, University of Alberta) have been developed and piloted in collaboration with the Glenrose Rehabilitation Hospital with the overall goal of increasing patient adherence, treatment outcomes, and satisfaction with vocal therapy. The proposed studies are to investigate the feasibility of implementing this technology in routine clinical care (specific to voice disorders), obtaining clinician feedback, examining associated financial costs, and continuing to examine the effect of the GlenXRose VR speech-language therapies on patient adherence and clinical outcomes, compared to traditional clinical care.
To perform a multi-site prospective study assessing, both subjectively and objectively, the gender disparities in speech outcomes of patients using TEP after total laryngectomy. The investigators hypothesize that speech outcomes, both subjective and objective measures, will be significantly poorer for female patients compared to male patients. The outcome of the study is to prospectively assess both subjective and objective gender disparities in voice and speech outcomes of patients using TEP after total laryngectomy across a multiple institutions. The investigators hypothesize that both subjective and objective measurements of voice, speech and quality of life will be poorer for female patients in comparison to male patients.
This study will evaluate the ability of MyoVoice to replace natural speech. Referred to generally as an Augmentative and Alternative Communication (AAC) device, MyoVoice uses electrical signals recorded non-invasively from speech muscles (electromyographic, or EMG, signals) to restore communication for those with vocal impairments that resulted from surgical treatment of laryngeal and oropharyngeal cancers.
The bridging of the gap between speech production and perception by the interlocutor would be made possible by the use of a more suitable and automatic task. An acoustic-phonetic decoding test (or DAP in French, i.e. the production of isolated pseudo-words in repetition or reading), created within the framework of the The French National Cancer Institute (InCA) C2SI project, avoids the effects of cognitive restoration by the interlocutor. An automatic score from the DAP would lead to an overall score per patient, but also to scores specific to each phonetic segment, to be correlated with the analytical scores from each anatomical oropharyngeal segment. The study hypothesis is that the automatic processing of an acoustic-phonetic decoding task during the assessment in current practice is a valid and reliable tool for diagnosing oropharyngeal analytical and dynamic deficits by highlighting deficient linguistic units. The study hypothesis is that the automatic processing of an acoustico-phonetic decoding task during the assessment in current practice is a tool for diagnosing oropharyngeal analytical and dynamic deficits by highlighting deficient linguistic units.
To evaluate, in primary care, the sensitivity of Heterophory-Vertical-Labile (HV-Labile) in ambulatory screening for Specific Learning Disabilities (SLD) and Developmental Coordination Disorder (DCD). in children aged 8 to 12 years.
The investigators are studying how speech is effected by jaw and tooth position in jaw surgery patients. Eighty percent of our jaw surgery patients have speech pathologies, compared to five percent of the general population, but speech pathologists do not understand why. The investigators hypothesize that open bites and underbites prevent most patients from being able to pronounce words normally and surgical correction will lead to improvement in speech. Patients will be audio recorded speaking and patients' tongue gestures ultrasound recorded before and after their jaw surgeries to observe what changes occur in their speech and tongue movements.