scholarly journals Digital Speech Analysis in Progressive Supranuclear Palsy and Corticobasal Syndromes

2021 ◽  
Vol 82 (1) ◽  
pp. 33-45 ◽  
Author(s):  
Natalia Parjane ◽  
Sunghye Cho ◽  
Sharon Ash ◽  
Katheryn A.Q. Cousins ◽  
Sanjana Shellikeri ◽  
...  
Keyword(s):  
Progressive Supranuclear Palsy ◽  
Speech Rate ◽  
Full Range ◽  
Primary Progressive Aphasia ◽  
Speech Impairments ◽  
Neuropsychological Measures ◽  
Speech Fluency ◽  
Partial Word ◽  
Speech Features ◽  
Speech Segments

Background: Progressive supranuclear palsy syndrome (PSPS) and corticobasal syndrome (CBS) as well as non-fluent/agrammatic primary progressive aphasia (naPPA) are often associated with misfolded 4-repeat tau pathology, but the diversity of the associated speech features is poorly understood. Objective: Investigate the full range of acoustic and lexical properties of speech to test the hypothesis that PSPS-CBS show a subset of speech impairments found in naPPA. Methods: Acoustic and lexical measures, extracted from natural, digitized semi-structured speech samples using novel, automated methods, were compared in PSPS-CBS (n = 87), naPPA (n = 25), and healthy controls (HC, n = 41). We related these measures to grammatical performance and speech fluency, core features of naPPA, to neuropsychological measures of naming, executive, memory and visuoconstructional functioning, and to cerebrospinal fluid (CSF) phosphorylated tau (pTau) levels in patients with available biofluid analytes. Results: Both naPPA and PSPS-CBS speech produced shorter speech segments, longer pauses, higher pause rates, reduced fundamental frequency (f0) pitch ranges, and slower speech rate compared to HC. naPPA speech was distinct from PSPS-CBS with shorter speech segments, more frequent pauses, slower speech rate, reduced verb production, and higher partial word production. In both groups, acoustic duration measures generally correlated with speech fluency, measured as words per minute, and grammatical performance. Speech measures did not correlate with standard neuropsychological measures. CSF pTau levels correlated with f0 range in PSPS-CBS and naPPA. Conclusion: Lexical and acoustic speech features of PSPS-CBS overlaps those of naPPA and are related to CSF pTau levels.

scholarly journals Digital Speech Analysis in Progressive Supranuclear Palsy and Corticobasal Syndromes

2020 ◽  
Author(s):  
Natalia Parjane ◽  
Sunghye Cho ◽  
Sharon Ash ◽  
Sanjana Shellikeri ◽  
Mark Liberman ◽  
...  
Keyword(s):  
Progressive Supranuclear Palsy ◽  
Speech Rate ◽  
Full Range ◽  
Primary Progressive Aphasia ◽  
Speech Disorders ◽  
Speech Impairments ◽  
Apraxia Of Speech ◽  
Speech Fluency ◽  
Speech Segments ◽  
Automated Methods

Background: Progressive supranuclear palsy and corticobasal syndromes (PSPS-CBS) as well as nonfluent/agrammatic primary progressive aphasia (naPPA) are often due to misfolded 4-repeat Tau, but the diversity of the associated speech disorders beyond Apraxia of Speech (AoS) is poorly understood. Objective: Investigate the full range of acoustic and lexical properties of speech to test the hypothesis that PSPS-CBS show a subset of speech impairments found in naPPA. Methods: Acoustic and lexical measures, extracted from natural, digitized semi-structured speech samples using novel, automated methods, were compared in PSPS-CBS (n=87), naPPA (n=25) and healthy controls (HC, n=41). We also explored speech in a group of PSPS-CBS patients with concomitant naPPA (PSPS-CBS+naPPA, n=8). We related these measures to grammatical performance and speech fluency, core features of naPPA, and to cerebrospinal fluid (CSF) phosphorylated tau (pTau) in patients with available biofluid. Results: Both naPPA and PSPS-CBS speech had shorter speech segments, longer pauses, higher pause rate, reduced fundamental frequency (f0) range, and slower speech rate compared to HC. naPPA speech was distinct from PSPS-CBS with shorter speech segments, more frequent pauses, slower speech rate, and reduced verb production. In both groups, acoustic duration measures generally correlated with speech fluency and grammatical performance. PSPS-CBS+naPPA resembled naPPA in most speech measures and had the narrowest f0 range. CSF pTau levels correlated with f0 range and verb production in PSPS-CBS and naPPA. Conclusion: The speech pattern of PSPS-CBS overlaps that of naPPA apart from AoS, and may be related to CSF pTau.

scholarly journals Speech fluency: a result of oral language proficiency?

Linguistica ◽  
2012 ◽  
Vol 52 (1) ◽  
pp. 87-100 ◽  
Author(s):  
Vesna Požgaj Hadži ◽  
Damir Horga ◽  
Tatjana Balazic Bulc
Keyword(s):  
Language Proficiency ◽  
Oral Language ◽  
Cognitive Abilities ◽  
Speech Rate ◽  
Corpus Analysis ◽  
Articulation Rate ◽  
Speech Fluency ◽  
Research Participants ◽  
Oral Language Proficiency

The aim of this paper is to answer the question of the influence of language proficiency on speech fluency in relation to speakers’ other cognitive abilities by comparing the speech of research participants who speak Slovenian as L1 and Croatian as LF. By using the method of acoustic and corpus analysis, the values of speech rate, articulation rate, mean length of runs and the length and frequency of certain pauses are presented.

Auditory-Perceptual Speech Features in Children With Down Syndrome

2019 ◽  
Vol 124 (4) ◽  
pp. 324-338 ◽  
Author(s):  
Harrison N. Jones ◽  
Kelly D. Crisp ◽  
Maragatha Kuchibhatla ◽  
Leslie Mahler ◽  
Thomas Risoli ◽  
...  
Keyword(s):  
Down Syndrome ◽  
Sound Production ◽  
Speech Rate ◽  
Speech Sound ◽  
Speech Disorders ◽  
Future Research ◽  
Assessment And Treatment ◽  
Pitch Level ◽  
Loudness Level ◽  
Speech Features

Abstract Speech disorders occur commonly in individuals with Down syndrome (DS), although data regarding the auditory-perceptual speech features are limited. This descriptive study assessed 47 perceptual speech features during connected speech samples in 26 children with DS. The most severely affected speech features were: naturalness, imprecise consonants, hyponasality, speech rate, inappropriate silences, irregular vowels, prolonged intervals, overall loudness level, pitch level, aberrant oropharyngeal resonance, hoarse voice, reduced stress, and prolonged phonemes. These findings suggest that speech disorders in DS are due to distributed impairments involving voice, speech sound production, fluency, resonance, and prosody. These data contribute to the development of a profile of impairments in speakers with DS to guide future research and inform clinical assessment and treatment.

scholarly journals Effects of tDCS on Sound Duration in Patients with Apraxia of Speech in Primary Progressive Aphasia

2021 ◽  
Author(s):  
Charalambos Themistocleous ◽  
Kimberly Webster ◽  
Kyrana Tsapkini
Keyword(s):  
Speech Therapy ◽  
Inferior Frontal Gyrus ◽  
Primary Progressive Aphasia ◽  
Preliminary Evidence ◽  
Apraxia Of Speech ◽  
Post Intervention ◽  
Left Inferior Frontal Gyrus ◽  
Primary Progressive ◽  
Speech Fluency ◽  
Sound Duration

Transcranial direct current stimulation (tDCS) over the left Inferior Frontal Gyrus (IFG) was found to improve apraxia of speech (AOS) in post-stroke aphasia, speech fluency in adults who stutter, naming and spelling in primary progressive (PPA). This paper aims to determine whether tDCS over the left IFG coupled with AOS therapy improves speech fluency in patients with PPA more than sham. Eight patients with non-fluent PPA with AOS symptoms received either active or sham tDCS, along with speech therapy for 15 weekday sessions. Speech therapy consisted of repetition of increasing syllable-length words. Evaluations took place before, immediately after, and two months post-intervention. Words were segmented into vowels and consonants and the duration of each vowel and consonant was measured. Segmental duration was significantly shorter after tDCS than sham for both consonants and vowels. tDCS gains generalized to untrained words. The effects of tDCS sustained over two months post-treatment in trained words. Taken together, these results demonstrate that the tDCS over the left IFG facilitates speech production by reducing segmental duration. The results provide preliminary evidence that tDCS can maximize efficacy of speech therapy in non-fluent PPA with AOS.

scholarly journals Análise quantitativa da tensividade no conteúdo verbal tendo em vista o estudo da expressão da emoção na fala e o modelamento prosódico

2011 ◽  
Vol 46 (1) ◽  
pp. 53-70
Author(s):  
Ana Cristina Fricke Matte
Keyword(s):  
Speech Rate ◽  
Quantitative Information ◽  
Emotional Information ◽  
Speech Segments ◽  
Temporal Flow ◽  
Linguistic Basis ◽  
Constitutive Element

In order to support with semiotic information the research in the field of phonostylistics, we propose a formula that allows turning a subjective and emotional information of one verbal text into quantitative information, from one analysis of temporality as a constitutive element of emotion. It gives us coordinates for a graphic that represents the variation of tension in the text sentence by sentence. It supports simultaneously the representation of prosodic information, such as speech rate in absolute values and, in relative values, the deviation of the duration of speech segments according to the expected patterns. In this paper we present the linguistic basis for this analysis, from a hierarchy of the sense of temporality to the graphics of the modulation of the deep temporal flow.

scholarly journals Language disorder in progressive supranuclear palsy and corticobasal syndrome: neural correlates and detection by the MLSE screening tool

2021 ◽  
Author(s):  
Katie A. Peterson ◽  
P. Simon Jones ◽  
Nikil Patel ◽  
Kamen A. Tsvetanov ◽  
Ruth Ingram ◽  
...  
Keyword(s):  
Progressive Supranuclear Palsy ◽  
Cortical Thickness ◽  
Screening Tool ◽  
Language Disorder ◽  
Short Form ◽  
Temporal Cortex ◽  
Primary Progressive Aphasia ◽  
Corticobasal Syndrome ◽  
Speech And Language ◽  
Subcortical Volumes

AbstractBackgroundProgressive supranuclear palsy (PSP) and corticobasal syndrome (CBS) affect speech and language as well as motor functions. Clinical and neuropathological data indicate a close relationship between these two disorders and the non-fluent variant of primary progressive aphasia (nfvPPA). We use the recently developed Mini Linguistic State Examination tool (MLSE) to study speech and language disorders in patients with PSP, CBS, and nfvPPA, in combination with structural magnetic resonance imaging (MRI).MethodsFifty-one patients (PSP N = 13, CBS N = 19, nfvPPA N = 19) and 30 age-matched controls completed the MLSE, the short form of the Boston Diagnostic Aphasia Examination (BDAE), and the Addenbrooke’s Cognitive Examination III. Thirty-eight patients and all controls underwent structural MRI at 3 Tesla, with T1 and T2-weighted images processed by surface-based and subcortical segmentation within FreeSurfer 6.0.0 to extract cortical thickness and subcortical volumes. Morphometric differences were compared between groups and correlated with severity of speech and language impairment.ResultsCBS and PSP patients showed impaired MLSE performance, compared to controls, with a similar language profile to nfvPPA, albeit less severe. All patient groups showed reduced cortical thickness in bilateral frontal regions and striatal volume. PSP and nfvPPA patients also showed reduced superior temporal cortical thickness, with additional thalamic and amygdalo-hippocampal volume reductions in nfvPPA. Multivariate analysis of brain-wide cortical thickness and subcortical volumes with MLSE domain scores revealed associations between performance on multiple speech and language domains with atrophy of left-lateralised fronto-temporal cortex, amygdala, hippocampus, putamen and caudate.ConclusionsThe effect of PSP and CBS on speech and language overlaps with nfvPPA. These three disorders cause a common anatomical pattern of atrophy in the left frontotemporal language network and striatum. The MLSE is a short clinical screening tool that can identify the language disorder of PSP and CBS, facilitating clinical management and patient access to future clinical trials.

scholarly journals Comparing two facets of emotion perception across multiple neurodegenerative diseases

2020 ◽  
Vol 15 (5) ◽  
pp. 511-522 ◽  
Author(s):  
Casey L Brown ◽  
Alice Y Hua ◽  
Lize De Coster ◽  
Virginia E Sturm ◽  
Joel H Kramer ◽  
...  
Keyword(s):  
Neurodegenerative Diseases ◽  
Progressive Supranuclear Palsy ◽  
Emotion Perception ◽  
Primary Progressive Aphasia ◽  
Tracking Task ◽  
Healthy Controls ◽  
Progressive Aphasia ◽  
Primary Progressive ◽  
Dynamic Tracking ◽  
Semantic Variant

Abstract Deficits in emotion perception (the ability to infer others’ emotions accurately) can occur as a result of neurodegeneration. It remains unclear how different neurodegenerative diseases affect different forms of emotion perception. The present study compares performance on a dynamic tracking task of emotion perception (where participants track the changing valence of a film character’s emotions) with performance on an emotion category labeling task (where participants label specific emotions portrayed by film characters) across seven diagnostic groups (N = 178) including Alzheimer’s disease (AD), behavioral variant frontotemporal dementia (bvFTD), semantic variant primary progressive aphasia (svPPA), non-fluent variant primary progressive aphasia (nfvPPA), progressive supranuclear palsy (PSP), corticobasal syndrome and healthy controls. Consistent with hypotheses, compared to controls, the bvFTD group was impaired on both tasks. The svPPA group was impaired on the emotion labeling task, whereas the nfvPPA, PSP and AD groups were impaired on the dynamic tracking task. Smaller volumes in bilateral frontal and left insular regions were associated with worse labeling, whereas smaller volumes in bilateral medial frontal, temporal and right insular regions were associated with worse tracking. Findings suggest labeling and tracking facets of emotion perception are differentially affected across neurodegenerative diseases due to their unique neuroanatomical correlates.

scholarly journals Language Disorder in Progressive Supranuclear Palsy and Corticobasal Syndrome: Neural Correlates and Detection by the MLSE Screening Tool

2021 ◽  
Vol 13 ◽  
Author(s):  
Katie A. Peterson ◽  
P. Simon Jones ◽  
Nikil Patel ◽  
Kamen A. Tsvetanov ◽  
Ruth Ingram ◽  
...  
Keyword(s):  
Progressive Supranuclear Palsy ◽  
Cortical Thickness ◽  
Screening Tool ◽  
Language Disorder ◽  
Short Form ◽  
Temporal Cortex ◽  
Primary Progressive Aphasia ◽  
Corticobasal Syndrome ◽  
Speech And Language ◽  
Subcortical Volumes

Background: Progressive supranuclear palsy (PSP) and corticobasal syndrome (CBS) affect speech and language as well as motor functions. Clinical and neuropathological data indicate a close relationship between these two disorders and the non-fluent variant of primary progressive aphasia (nfvPPA). We use the recently developed Mini Linguistic State Examination tool (MLSE) to study speech and language disorders in patients with PSP, CBS, and nfvPPA, in combination with structural magnetic resonance imaging (MRI).Methods: Fifty-one patients (PSP N = 13, CBS N = 19, nfvPPA N = 19) and 30 age-matched controls completed the MLSE, the short form of the Boston Diagnostic Aphasia Examination (BDAE), and the Addenbrooke’s Cognitive Examination III. Thirty-eight patients and all controls underwent structural MRI at 3 Tesla, with T1 and T2-weighted images processed by surface-based and subcortical segmentation within FreeSurfer 6.0.0 to extract cortical thickness and subcortical volumes. Morphometric differences were compared between groups and correlated with the severity of speech and language impairment.Results: CBS and PSP patients showed impaired MLSE performance, compared to controls, with a similar language profile to nfvPPA, albeit less severe. All patient groups showed reduced cortical thickness in bilateral frontal regions and striatal volume. PSP and nfvPPA patients also showed reduced superior temporal cortical thickness, with additional thalamic and amygdalo-hippocampal volume reductions in nfvPPA. Multivariate analysis of brain-wide cortical thickness and subcortical volumes with MLSE domain scores revealed associations between performance on multiple speech and language domains with atrophy of left-lateralised fronto-temporal cortex, amygdala, hippocampus, putamen, and caudate.Conclusions: The effect of PSP and CBS on speech and language overlaps with nfvPPA. These three disorders cause a common anatomical pattern of atrophy in the left frontotemporal language network and striatum. The MLSE is a short clinical screening tool that can identify the language disorder of PSP and CBS, facilitating clinical management and patient access to future clinical trials.

scholarly journals Auditory–Perceptual Assessment of Fluency in Typical and Neurologically Disordered Speech

2018 ◽  
Vol 61 (5) ◽  
pp. 1086-1103 ◽  
Author(s):  
Nelly Penttilä ◽  
Anna-Maija Korpijaakko-Huuhka ◽  
Ray D. Kent
Keyword(s):  
Traumatic Brain Injury ◽  
Brain Injury ◽  
Analogue Scale ◽  
Speech Rate ◽  
Communication Disorders ◽  
Control Group ◽  
Speech Fluency ◽  
Research Questions ◽  
Perceptual Assessment ◽  
Disordered Speech

Purpose The aim of this study is to investigate how speech fluency in typical and atypical speech is perceptually assessed by speech-language pathologists (SLPs). Our research questions were as follows: (a) How do SLPs rate fluency in speakers with and without neurological communication disorders? (b) Do they differentiate the speaker groups? and (c) What features do they hear impairing speech fluency? Method Ten SLPs specialized in neurological communication disorders volunteered as expert judges to rate 90 narrative speech samples on a Visual Analogue Scale (see Kempster, Gerratt, Verdolini Abbott, Barkmeier-Kraemer, & Hillman, 2009; p. 127). The samples—randomly mixed—were from 70 neurologically healthy speakers (the control group) and 20 speakers with traumatic brain injury, 10 of whom had neurogenic stuttering (designated as Clinical Groups A and B). Results The fluency rates were higher for typical speakers than for speakers with traumatic brain injury; however, the agreement among the judges was higher for atypical fluency. Auditory–perceptual assessment of fluency was significantly impaired by the features of stuttering and something else but not by speech rate. Stuttering was also perceived in speakers not diagnosed as stutterers. A borderline between typical and atypical fluency was found. Conclusions Speech fluency is a multifaceted phenomenon, and on the basis of this study, we suggest a more general approach to fluency and its deviations that will take into account, in addition to the motor and linguistic aspects of fluency, the metalinguistic component of expression as well. The results of this study indicate a need for further studies on the precise nature of borderline fluency and its different disfluencies.

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