Federal Project Grant Award Summary

Utah State University received a $430,379 Project Grant award dated May 15, 2026, from the National Institute on Deafness and Other Communication Disorders (NIDCD) under the Research Related to Deafness and Communication Disorders program (CFDA 93.173). The project, "Leveraging Entrainment for Improving Communication in People with Parkinson's Disease," will be conducted in Logan, Utah, and is scheduled for completion by March 31, 2028.

The grant supports research investigating how people with Parkinson's disease can improve their communication through entrainment—the natural process by which individuals adapt their speech and language behaviors to align with those of their communication partners. Specifically, the research explores the extent to which patients with hypokinetic dysarthria (characterized by mumbled and rapid speech) will naturally adopt and maintain speaker strategies such as clear speech, slow speech, and simple language when interacting with communication partners intentionally employing these techniques. Grounded in the Interactive Alignment Model, the study aims to determine whether automatic entrainment to a communication partner's speech and language patterns can facilitate improved communication outcomes for individuals with Parkinson's disease, with findings potentially supporting generalization of therapeutic strategies from clinical settings to everyday conversations.