This $584,658 Project Grant award from the National Institute on Deafness and Other Communication Disorders (NIDCD), under the Research Related to Deafness and Communication Disorders program (CFDA 93.173), aims to establish the efficacy of listener training as a clinical intervention to improve intelligibility for individuals with Parkinson's disease (PD) and their primary communication partners.
The primary objectives are to: 1) Examine the immediate acquisition and retention of intelligibility improvements from listener training as a function of speaker severity; 2) Evaluate the benefits of listener training on listening effort, comprehension, and communicative participation; and 3) Engage stakeholder input to inform the clinical implementation of the listener training approach. This research will address a critical gap in clinical care for individuals with PD-related speech intelligibility challenges by shifting the focus from speaker-based to listener-based remediation strategies. The award period runs from Sep 1, 2024 to May 31, 2029.
The project includes a $173,197 sub-award to Florida State University to support related research activities.