NCT06593860

Dysarthria Management for Minor Groups

Toward a Dysarthria Management Model for Linguistically and Culturally Diverse Groups: Foreign Born Immigrants

• Status: Recruiting
• Phase: N/A
• Study type: Interventional
• Enrollment: 32 (estimated)
• Sponsor: Florida State University · Academic / Other
• Sex: All
• Age: 25 Years – 85 Years
• Healthy volunteers: Not accepted

Summary

This study develops and conduct a small-scale clinical trial study in which the linguistic and cultural diversity of the participants is considered. Speech therapy and counseling services are provided to both patients with Parkinson\'s disease and their caregivers.

Detailed description

Attention has been increasingly paid to the "culturally and linguistically diverse (CLD)" communities which typically include dialectal users of English, monolingual and multilingual speakers of minority languages, and bilingual speakers of English and a minority language. However, among these, monolingual speakers of minority languages living in the US have been nearly excluded from dysarthria management. Most of these are first-generation immigrants who are well documented to have limited access to financial and medical services and have poorer health outcomes including communication difficulties. This creates critical health disparities in the field of communication rehabilitation. This study will (1) examine effects of speech therapy on PD patients' speech acoustics and intelligibility, (2) examine effects of the intervention program on communication participation and well-being of both PD patients and their families. Our primary outcome measures, speech intelligibility and acoustic measures, are hypothesized to show improvements. Acoustic predictors of speech intelligibility are expected to include acoustic vowel space and voice onset time. These hypotheses are based on literature reporting (1) positive changes in speech function after intensive treatment programs focusing on vocal effort and hyperarticulation and (2) language-specific contributors to speech intelligibility in PD. Our secondary outcome measures include (1) communication participation and (2) well-being measures which will be obtained from both PD patients and family members. Based on previous research, the measures are hypothesized to show improved communication participation and well-being in both PD patients and their families following therapy.

Conditions

• Parkinson Disease
• Dysarthria

Interventions

Type	Name	Description
BEHAVIORAL	Remote speech rehabilitation	Two types of intervention will be provided via online to 32 dyads of people with Parkinson's disease: (1) speech therapy (PD patients) and (2) family education/training (PD families). Speech therapy will replicate the dose prescribed by many treatment programs including LSVT LOUD, LSVT ARTIC and Be Clear, consisting of 16 sessions of 50-60 minutes duration delivered over four weeks. Participants will also be set 15 to 20 minutes of daily home practice. Family education/training will take place once a week over 4 weeks.

Timeline

• Start date: 2024-08-05
• Primary completion: 2026-02-28
• Completion: 2026-02-28
• First posted: 2024-09-19
• Last updated: 2025-09-25

Locations

1 site across 1 country: United States