Speech Learning and Speech Production in Parkinson's Disease

Relationship Between Speech Perceptual Learning and Speech Production in Parkinson's Disease

Parkinson's disease, a common movement disorder that results from a breakdown in the brain, often leads to challenges with talking, but less is known about the relationship between difficulties with talking and difficulties with learning to understand speech. By linking these two abilities in individuals with Parkinson's disease using a precision medicine approach, this project seeks to build a basis for new therapies that help people with Parkinson's disease both understand better and speak more clearly.

Study Overview

• Status: Recruiting
• Conditions: Parkinson's Disease
• Intervention / Treatment: Behavioral: Intensity learning; Behavioral: Intensity discrimination; Behavioral: Rate learning; Behavioral: Rate discrimination

Detailed Description

In the context of speech-language therapy, Parkinson's disease (PD) is typically associated with its consequences on speech production. Interventions generally focus on learning or relearning skills to accomplish successful production. However, the disease itself, as well as patient responses to interventions, are variable. Individuals differ widely in how typical their speech output is before intervention and in how much they learn from treatment. One plausible explanation for this variation comes from a less-studied aspect of speech and language in PD: speech perception, especially speech perceptual learning. There is a key gap in the PD literature about whether people who produce atypical rate and intensity properties in their own speech also find it more difficult to learn rate and intensity properties from others' speech. There is, therefore, a critical need for a full understanding of the relationship between speech production and speech perceptual learning in PD. The long- term goal of this research program is to systematically interrogate the relationship between speech learning and production in people with PD and to leverage that knowledge to promote effective communication. The overall objective of this project is to use acoustic measures to determine how challenges with speech perception or learning can predict individual differences in speech production. The central hypothesis is that individual differences between people with PD in speech perception or learning can predict individual differences between people with PD in speech production. This project adopts an individual differences approach to investigate two major aims: (1) relating individual differences in the perceptual learning of speech rate to the production of speech rate, and (2) relating individual differences in the perceptual learning of intensity to the production of intensity. To investigate these aims, each participant will record a speech sample and conduct tasks that involve learning regularities in rate or intensity in the speech of others. Participants will also complete tasks that require the ability to distinguish between sentences based on their rate and intensity. Participants' speech samples will additionally be judged by naive listeners to assess the samples' intelligibility and the effort that it takes to understand the speakers. If individual differences in perceptual learning predict individual differences in production, then differences in speech perception may predict differences in speech-language therapy outcomes that could be targeted to patient needs. A precision medicine approach would allow for interventions that titrate the amount, level, and type of intervention on an individualized basis to make sure that treatments are focused on participants who will respond to them in dosages that they will benefit from. For instance, a therapist could provide speech perception training to accelerate outcomes of production-related treatments. Furthermore, by applying more naturalistic measures of speech perception to this population, especially ones that rely on participants to change over the course of a session, this project provides an innovative opportunity to examine the sensory and perceptual consequences of PD and to link those to better-documented motor outcomes

• Study Type: Interventional
• Enrollment (Estimated): 50
• Phase: Not Applicable

Contacts and Locations

Study Locations

• United States
  • New York
    • Buffalo, New York, United States, 14214
      • Recruiting
      • State University of New York at Buffalo
      • Contact: Jordana Maisel; Phone Number: 1 (716) 829-5902; Email: jlmaisel@buffalo.edu

Participation Criteria

Eligibility Criteria

• Ages Eligible for Study: Adult; Older Adult
• Accepts Healthy Volunteers: No

Description

Inclusion Criteria:

• Diagnosis of Parkinson's disease
• Native speaker of North American English
• Use a drug that includes levodopa
• Resident of the United States

Exclusion Criteria:

• Any history of language, hearing or speech disorder outside of Parkinson's disease
• Other gross neurological impairment such as Alzheimer's disease or stroke
• Significant hearing loss and/or use of a hearing aid or cochlear implant

Study Plan

How is the study designed?

Design Details

• Primary Purpose: Basic Science
• Allocation: N/A
• Interventional Model: Single Group Assignment
• Masking: None (Open Label)

Number of Arms

1

Arms and Interventions

Participant Group / Arm

Intervention / Treatment

Experimental: Learning and Discrimination; Behavioral interventions will be administered, including speech intensity learning, speech intensity discrimination, speech rate learning, and speech rate discrimination

Behavioral: Intensity learning; Participants will be asked to pair sentences that vary in their sound intensity to one of three colored squares (red, yellow, or blue); Behavioral: Intensity discrimination; Participants will hear two sentences that are either the same or different in their sound intensity and will be asked to indicate whether the sentences were of the same or different intensities; Behavioral: Rate learning; Participants will be asked to pair sentences that vary in their spoken rate to one of three colored squares (red, yellow, or blue); Behavioral: Rate discrimination; Participants will hear two sentences that are either the same or different in their spoken rate and will be asked to indicate whether the sentences were of the same or different rates

What is the study measuring?

Primary Outcome Measures

Outcome Measure	Measure Description	Time Frame
Mean dB SPL	The mean speech intensity (in dB SPL) will be assessed using a recording of spoken sentences and a spoken paragraph.	Day 1
Standard deviation dB SPL	The standard deviation of participant's speech intensity (in dB SPL) will be assessed using a recording of spoken sentences and a spoken paragraph.	Day 1
Speaking rate	The speaking rate (in syllables/second) will be assessed using a recording of spoken sentences and a spoken paragraph.	Day 1
Articulation rate	The articulation rate (in syllables/second after removing pauses) will be assessed using a recording of spoken sentences and a spoken paragraph.	Day 1
Unfilled pause time	The unfilled pause time (in seconds of pause) will be assessed using a recording of spoken sentences and a spoken paragraph.	Day 1

Collaborators and Investigators

• Sponsor: State University of New York at Buffalo

Study record dates

Study Major Dates

• Study Start (Actual): January 27, 2026
• Primary Completion (Estimated): December 31, 2027
• Study Completion (Estimated): December 31, 2027

Study Registration Dates

• First Submitted: January 27, 2026
• First Submitted That Met QC Criteria: February 4, 2026
• First Posted (Actual): February 11, 2026

Study Record Updates

• Last Update Posted (Actual): February 11, 2026
• Last Update Submitted That Met QC Criteria: February 4, 2026
• Last Verified: February 1, 2026

More Information

Terms related to this study

• Keywords: communication; learning; speech perception
• Additional Relevant MeSH Terms: Synucleinopathies; Brain Diseases; Central Nervous System Diseases; Nervous System Diseases; Neurodegenerative Diseases; Movement Disorders; Parkinsonian Disorders; Basal Ganglia Diseases; Behavior; Parkinson Disease; Communication
• Other Study ID Numbers: STUDY00008661

Plan for Individual participant data (IPD)

• Plan to Share Individual Participant Data (IPD)?: YES
• IPD Plan Description: Deidentified speech perception and speech production data from individual participants
• IPD Sharing Time Frame: Information will be available at the conclusion of data collection and will be available indefinitely
• IPD Sharing Access Criteria: Data and supporting material will be available on the Open Science Framework, a database that is open to the general public
• IPD Sharing Supporting Information Type: STUDY_PROTOCOL; SAP

Drug and device information, study documents

• Studies a U.S. FDA-regulated drug product: No
• Studies a U.S. FDA-regulated device product: No