Speech timing and monosyllabic diadochokinesis measures in the assessment of amyotrophic lateral sclerosis in Canadian French.
Liziane Bouvier, Scotia McKinlay, Justin Truong and 5 others
PMID 37272348WHAT IT FOUND
In French-speaking ALS patients, a rapid syllable repetition task detected early bulbar changes, while passage reading only distinguished those with established symptoms.
Speaking rate and pause measures did not flag pre-symptomatic cases in French, unlike in English.
Key findings
01DDK rate for the syllable /ta/ was the only metric that distinguished pre-symptomatic ALS speakers from healthy controls.
02Passage reading measures (total duration, speaking rate, speech duration) distinguished symptomatic ALS patients from both healthy controls and pre-symptomatic patients.
03Passage-level timing measures failed to detect ALS prior to the development of bulbar symptoms in French speakers, contrasting with findings in English speakers.
STILL TO COME
How it was doneWhat they foundWhat it means for SLPs
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What it does not show
The sample size was small (29 ALS participants), which may have limited the ability to detect significant differences. Patient classification relied on the ALSFRS-R bulbar subscore, which can fluctuate in early disease stages and may have misclassified some participants. Respiratory and cognitive dysfunction were not measured, so their contribution to speech timing changes is unknown. The study did not include direct cross-linguistic comparisons with English speakers, relying on literature comparisons to infer language-specific differences.
Declared interests
No conflicts of interest or funding sources were explicitly stated in the provided text, though the study was part of a large cross-country longitudinal study.
The easy way to misread this
Do not assume that passage reading measures like speaking rate are sensitive to early bulbar dysfunction in all languages. This study found they did not distinguish pre-symptomatic French-speaking ALS patients from healthy controls, unlike in English speakers. Relying solely on passage tasks in French-speaking patients may delay detection of early speech motor changes.