Objective: The purpose of this study was to compare before- and after-scores of speech and language abilities, and quality of life of Thai people with aphasia.Material and Methods: A cross-sectional study was conducted at the Speech Clinic in Ramathibodi Hospital from July 2016 to March 2017. Participants were 11 Thai people with aphasia. They received group therapy for three hours per session, for eight sessions, within three to five months. The measurement of speech and language abilities was assessed using the Thai Adaptation of the Western Aphasia Battery (WAB). The measurement of quality of life was assessed using the Thai version of the Stroke Impact Scale (SIS) 3.0. The results were analyzed using descriptive statistics and a paired samples t-test for comparisons of the mean scores before and after group therapy.Results: Of the participants, there were 8 males (72.8%) and 3 females (27.3%) with aphasia. They ranged in age from 27 to 68, with a mean age of 48.55±13.42 years. Results showed that the differences in the improvements of speech and language abilities scores and quality of life scores of these participants after group therapy were significant and higher than their scores before group therapy (p-value<0.01).Conclusion: Group therapy may be an efficient and effective way to rehabilitate the speech and language abilities and quality of life of Thai people with aphasia.

Background: Previous studies have reported on the treatment of alaryngeal patients in order to improve their speech in several ways, but little focus was placed on esophageal speech. Objectives: To determine the time duration of esophageal speech training after which alaryngeal patients can speak, and to analyze the factors affecting esophageal speech training outcomes. Methods: A retrospective study, 29 alaryngeal patients who visited the Speech Clinic at Ramathibodi Hospital participated in the study. Data were collected from patients’ medical records after speech therapy with the esophageal speech and the combination of esophageal speech and electrolarynx. Data was analyzed by descriptive and inferential statistics. Results: Of 29 alaryngeal patients, 7 patients from the esophageal speech group and 6 patients from the combination of esophageal speech and electrolarynx training group could produce a first speech sound. The median duration of time that alaryngeal patients needed to speak after esophageal speech training was 11 weeks. Chemotherapy and the frequency of speech training sessions were factors that significantly affected the time durations needed by alaryngeal patients who succeeded in speaking because of esophageal speech training (P < .05). Alaryngeal patients who were not treated with chemotherapy and attended speech training sessions more than once per month had shorter time durations for esophageal speech training than the others. Conclusions: Alaryngeal patients could speak after esophageal speech training for at least 11 weeks. Chemotherapy and frequency of speech training sessions impacted esophageal speech training outcomes.

Objective: To compare vocal function between females with benign vocal fold lesions, and females with normal voices by use of electroglottograph (EGG), also in addition to determining which EGG parameters were significantly correlated with the perceptual degree of dysphonia. Material and Methods: EGG data were obtained from 32 females with benign vocal fold lesions and 32 females with normal voices. The EGG parameter values were analyzed from their productions of four sustained vowels (/a:/, /u:/, /i:/, and /æ:/). Results: The two perturbation measures of EGG signals, EGG-jitter and EGG-shimmer of females with benign vocal fold lesions were significantly higher than those of normal females at a p-value<0.01 for all four vowels. EGG-SDF0 of females with benign vocal fold lesions were significantly higher than those of normal females at a p-value<0.01 for /i:/, and /æ:/. EGG-F0 of females with benign vocal fold lesions were significantly lower than those of normal females at a p-value<0.01 for /u:/, /i:/, and /æ:/. The differences in contact quotient were non-significant on all four sustained vowels between the two groups. In addition, EGG-SDF0 was found to be significantly correlated with the perceptual degree of dysphonia for four sustained vowels. Conclusion: The results of this study showed the differences between vocal function of females with benign vocal lesions and females with normal voices, using EGG parameters. Furthermore, EGG-SDF0 could be used as an indicator for the degree of severity of dysphonia in females with benign vocal fold lesions.

The objective of this study was to compare experiential grammar in the narrative discourse of thirty typically developing Thai children and thirty Thai children with autism in elementary grades 1 to 3. Data was compiled by asking subjects to tell a narrative discourse from a wordless storybook "A Boy, a Dog, and a Frog" (Mayer 1967). Data was analyzed based on the Systemic Functional Linguistics approach and focused on experiential mode of meaning concerned with the system of Transitivity.The results revealed that children with autism used