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

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.