Perceptual consequences of online group speech treatment for individuals with Parkinson’s disease: A pilot study case series

Abstract

Purpose

We examined perceptual changes in the domains of ease of understanding, naturalness, and speech severity, as well as changes in self-perceptions of voice disability, following an online group speech treatment program for people with Parkinson’s disease (PD) conducted during the COVID-19 pandemic.

Method

Seven speakers with hypokinetic dysarthria associated with PD participated in a university and community-based online group speech program for 10 weeks. Speech recordings occurred remotely 1 week before and 1 week after the online program. Thirty naïve listeners rated ease of understanding, naturalness, and speech severity based on the speech recordings. Speakers’ self-perceptions of voice disability were also obtained at both time points.

Result

Individual analysis of the speech data showed that for most speakers with dysarthria, ease of understanding and perceptions of severity were rated the same or better pre- to post-treatment. Naturalness, however, was only perceived to be the same or better post-treatment in three out of seven speakers. Over half of the speakers reported improvements in their self-perception of voice disability.

Conclusion

This pilot study highlighted the individual variability among speakers with dysarthria and the potential of online group speech treatment to maintain and/or improve speech function in this population.

Keywords:

• Teletherapy
• group treatment
• Parkinson's disease
• ease of understanding
• naturalness
• speech severity

Acknowledgements

The authors wholeheartedly thank the individuals with PD and their care partners for making this study possible, as well as the listeners who participated in the study. The authors also thank Carol Slingerland Norman for her supervision of treatment sessions, and Kristen Blanchard for her priceless help in the recruitment and perceptual testing of listeners.

Author contributions

GMG was responsible for study conceptualisation, recruitment of speakers with PD, remote voice recordings, treatment cosupervision, data organisation and analysis, and manuscript elaboration and editing. GP was responsible for listener recruitment and testing, as well as final manuscript editing. SJW was responsible for data preparation and analysis, and manuscript elaboration and editing.

Declaration of interest

No potential conflict of interest was reported by the author(s).

Data availability statement

Data are available on request from the authors.

Notes

1 One of the speakers (P5) was diagnosed with Lewy body dementia (DLB) after the initiation of the study.

Additional information

Funding

This work was partially supported by grant funds from the Michael J. Fox Foundation for Parkinson’s Research awarded to Gemma Moya-Galé.