Alzheimer's disease is the leading cause of dementia in older adults. Although memory problems are the most characteristic symptom of this disorder, many individuals also experience progressive problems with communication. This systematic review investigates the effectiveness of methods to improve the verbal communication of individuals with Alzheimer's disease with their caregivers. The following databases were reviewed: PsychINFO, CINAHL, EMBASE, MEDLINE, REHABDATA, and COMDIS. The inclusion criteria were: (i) experimentally based studies, (ii) quantitative results, (iii) intervention aimed at improving verbal communication of the affected individual with a caregiver, and (iv) at least 50% of the sample having a confirmed diagnosis of Alzheimer's disease. A total of 13 studies met all of the inclusion criteria. One technique emerged as potentially effective: the use of memory aids combined with specific caregiver training programs. The strength of this evidence was restricted by methodological limitations of the studies. Both adoption of and further research on these interventions are recommended.

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Currently, there is no theoretically justified, evidence-based metric for evaluating segmental and prosodic components of multisyllabic words (MSWs). A pilot study evaluated a MSW metric embedded in non-linear phonological- and language-processing frameworks. Six MSWs were analyzed in 10 Canadian English-speaking 5-year-olds with typically developing speech, and eight French-speaking children, ages 3-4 years, with protracted phonological development (PPD). Mismatches were tallied (with and without vowels), with totals ranked by word and participant, then compared with ranks from Phonological Mean Length of Utterance (PMLU) and Percent Consonants Correct (PCC) tallies. For both groups, the number of different ranks was significant in comparisons of MSW metrics with PMLU and PCC. Rank orderings were systematically higher for English-speaking children using the MSW metric, with/without vowels, and for French-speaking children using the MSW metric with vowels. Overall, the MSW metric was particularly suitable for fine-grained differentiation of phonological accuracy in MSW production.

An international study is investigating phonological development in 12 languages: Romance (Canadian French, Granada, Mexican and Chilean Spanish, and European Portuguese); Germanic (German, English, Swedish, and Icelandic); Semitic (Kuwaiti Arabic); Asian (Japanese, Mandarin); South Slavic (Bulgarian, Slovene). Additional phonological assessment materials have been created for Anishinaabemowin (Algonquian, Canada), Brazilian Portuguese, European French, Punjabi, Tagalog, and Greek. The study has two purposes: (a) to investigate crosslinguistic patterns in phonological development; and (b) to develop assessment tools and treatment activities. Equivalent crosslinguistic methodologies include: (a) single word lists for elicitation that reflect major characteristics of each language; (b) data collection and transcription by native speakers; (c) participant samples of 20–30 preschoolers (ages 3 to 6) with typical versus protracted phonological development; and (d) data analysis supported by Phon, a phonological analysis program. The current paper provides an overview of the study and introduces a website that offers free tutorials and materials for speech-language pathologists (SLPs).

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