scholarly journals Breakdowns in Informativeness of Naturalistic Speech Production in Primary Progressive Aphasia

2021 ◽  
Vol 11 (2) ◽  
pp. 130
Author(s):  
Jeanne Gallée ◽  
Claire Cordella ◽  
Evelina Fedorenko ◽  
Daisy Hochberg ◽  
Alexandra Touroutoglou ◽  
...  

“Functional communication” refers to an individual’s ability to communicate effectively in his or her everyday environment, and thus is a paramount skill to monitor and target therapeutically in people with aphasia. However, traditional controlled-paradigm assessments commonly used in both research and clinical settings often fail to adequately capture this ability. In the current study, facets of functional communication were measured from picture-elicited speech samples from 70 individuals with mild primary progressive aphasia (PPA), including the three variants, and 31 age-matched controls. Building upon methods recently used by Berube et al. (2019), we measured the informativeness of speech by quantifying the content of each patient’s description that was relevant to a picture relative to the total amount of speech they produced. Importantly, form-based errors, such as mispronunciations of words, unusual word choices, or grammatical mistakes are not penalized in this approach. We found that the relative informativeness, or efficiency, of speech was preserved in non-fluent variant PPA patients as compared with controls, whereas the logopenic and semantic variant PPA patients produced significantly less informative output. Furthermore, reduced informativeness in the semantic variant is attributable to a lower production of content units and a propensity for self-referential tangents, whereas for the logopenic variant, a lower production of content units and relatively ”empty” speech and false starts contribute to this reduction. These findings demonstrate that functional communication impairment does not uniformly affect all the PPA variants and highlight the utility of naturalistic speech analysis for measuring the breakdown of functional communication in PPA.

2021 ◽  
Vol 21 (3) ◽  
Author(s):  
Justina Ruksenaite ◽  
Anna Volkmer ◽  
Jessica Jiang ◽  
Jeremy CS Johnson ◽  
Charles R Marshall ◽  
...  

Abstract Purpose of Review The term primary progressive aphasia (PPA) refers to a diverse group of dementias that present with prominent and early problems with speech and language. They present considerable challenges to clinicians and researchers. Recent Findings Here, we review critical issues around diagnosis of the three major PPA variants (semantic variant PPA, nonfluent/agrammatic variant PPA, logopenic variant PPA), as well as considering ‘fragmentary’ syndromes. We next consider issues around assessing disease stage, before discussing physiological phenotyping of proteinopathies across the PPA spectrum. We also review evidence for core central auditory impairments in PPA, outline critical challenges associated with treatment, discuss pathophysiological features of each major PPA variant, and conclude with thoughts on key challenges that remain to be addressed. Summary New findings elucidating the pathophysiology of PPA represent a major step forward in our understanding of these diseases, with implications for diagnosis, care, management, and therapies.


2018 ◽  
Vol 30 (1) ◽  
pp. 31-37 ◽  
Author(s):  
Simon Kang Seng Ting ◽  
Heidi Foo ◽  
Pei Shi Chia ◽  
Shahul Hameed ◽  
Kok Pin Ng ◽  
...  

2018 ◽  
Vol 144 (6) ◽  
pp. 3364-3370
Author(s):  
Rene L. Utianski ◽  
Hugo Botha ◽  
Joseph R. Duffy ◽  
Heather M. Clark ◽  
Peter R. Martin ◽  
...  

Neurocase ◽  
2014 ◽  
Vol 21 (4) ◽  
pp. 448-456 ◽  
Author(s):  
J. Macoir ◽  
M. Leroy ◽  
S. Routhier ◽  
N. Auclair-Ouellet ◽  
M. Houde ◽  
...  

Brain ◽  
2014 ◽  
Vol 137 (7) ◽  
pp. 2065-2076 ◽  
Author(s):  
Rachel H. Tan ◽  
Stephanie Wong ◽  
Jillian J. Kril ◽  
Olivier Piguet ◽  
Michael Hornberger ◽  
...  

Author(s):  
Jeanne Gallée ◽  
Anna Volkmer

Purpose Naturalistic speech samples should be routinely collected in the assessment of individuals with communication difficulties. However, even when these samples are collected, they are often underutilized. We propose that the analysis of naturalistic speech samples can greatly enhance our understanding and evaluation of the functional impact of primary progressive aphasia (PPA) on communication. First, we review the current practices of evaluating PPA. Second, we provide a framework to optimize the collection, analysis, and interpretation of speech samples to accomplish this goal. In particular, we demonstrate how speech samples can be evaluated for measures of informativeness, the presence of atypical patterns of speech, articulatory rate, and pausing, all of which are helpful metrics in characterizing disordered speech. These factors can be leveraged to identify both the strengths and difficulties an individual may face in everyday communication. Conclusion The collection of naturalistic speech in both clinical and naturalistic settings with typical communication partners is highly recommended to best diagnose, monitor, and inform treatment plans for individuals with PPA.


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