NCT05472181

The Effects of Brain Stimulation on Speech Fluency in Adults Who Stutter

The Effects of Brain Stimulation on Enhancement of Speech Fluency in Adults Who Stutter

• Status: Unknown
• Phase: N/A
• Study type: Interventional
• Enrollment: 18 (estimated)
• Sponsor: The University of Hong Kong · Academic / Other
• Sex: All
• Age: 18 Years – 60 Years
• Healthy volunteers: Not accepted

Summary

The project is leading to investigate the effects of neuromodulation techniques on speech fluency among adults who stutter (AWS). While stuttering is responsive to a variety of treatments in childhood, this is not the case for AWS. Behavioural treatments to reduce stuttering for adults typically consist of speech restructuring methods, which involves the person using one of the altered speech patterns known to increase fluency, such as chorus reading, speaking in rhythm, and prolonging (smoothing/stretching out) speech sounds. Research has shown that behavioural interventions such as these change brain activation patterns in the regions associated with stuttering. Unfortunately, around 70% of AWS who receive these speech restructuring treatments do not maintain the benefits in the longer term and frequently re-present to speech clinics. The aim of this proposed research is to explore whether the brain stimulation using repetitive transcranial magnetic stimulation (rTMS) can consistently enhance effects of behavioural stuttering therapy by examining their responsiveness to the treatment across different outcome measures including a) immediate effect on different speaking contexts, and b) the maintenance of effects over one week after therapy.

Conditions

• Stuttering, Adult

Interventions

Type	Name	Description
DEVICE	rTMS (Repetitive TMS)	TMS stimulation produce electromagnetic pulses that can directly changes the neural firing in the brain. The rTMS applies the magnetic pulses in a repetitive manner, and can induce either an inhibitory or excitatory effect on cortical neurons. In this study we use high frequency rTMS (10 Hz) to provide the excitatory effect.
BEHAVIORAL	Speech training	The behavioural training will include reading sentences in which a syllable is spoken in time to a rhythmic beat.

Timeline

• Start date: 2022-10-01
• Primary completion: 2023-09-01
• Completion: 2023-12-30
• First posted: 2022-07-25
• Last updated: 2022-11-08

Locations

1 site across 1 country: Hong Kong