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

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.