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Background: Diadochokinetic rates tasks are frequently used for the assessment of diadochokinesia (DKK) in young and elderly adults. However, there is scarce research on healthy elderly adults over 65 years old, and little is known about the effect of different types of stimuli (non-words/real words) in this specific population. Furthermore, the current research supports significant language variations, highlighting the need for language-specific norms. Aims:To investigate the effect of age, gender and type of stimuli (non-words versus real words) in DDK rates in healthy elderly adults of over 65 years of age, and to provide normative data for the Greek language.Methods & Procedures: The participants were 791 healthy monolingual Greekspeaking adults (531 adults, aged 20-39 years; 157 participants aged 65-74 years; and 103 participants aged over 75 years). All participants were monolingual speakers of Greek and had normal hearing acuity, which allowed them to understand and follow instructions. Participants with a medical condition, which would affect DDK rates' performance, were excluded from the study. The timeby-count method was used, and all participants had to repeat as accurately and fast as possible: (1) four disyllabic non-words (/′gaba/, /′taka/, /′kata/, /′baga/);(2) four disyllabic real words (/′kapa/, /′tapa/, /ka′la/, /′paka/); and (3) two trisyllabic non-words (/′pataka/, /′badaga/). All responses were recorded and the speech samples that did not include at least 5 s of correct repetitions were excluded from the analysis.Outcomes & Results: Age affected DDK rates significantly, with older adults achieving slower DDK rates for all speech stimuli (non-words/real words). Gender did not have an effect on the performance of DDK rates. The type of speech stimuli affected DDK rates significantly for all age groups. Analytically, trisyllabic non-word stimuli were articulated more slowly than disyllabic non-word stimuli, and real words were produced faster than nonwords. A linear regression analysis revealed that only the repetition of nonwords predicted 68.4% of the performance on the repetition of trisyllabic non-words.

This study examined the performance of Greek monolingual typically developing (TD) children on diadochokinetic (DDK) rates in real words and non-words and attempted to establish normative data for Greek. The effects of age, type of stimuli and gender were investigated. A total of 380 children aged 4.0–15.0 years as well as a control group of 313 adults participated in the study. Age significantly affected DDK performance, yet normative data differ from other studies. DDK rates for bisyllabic stimuli were faster than DDK rates for trisyllabic stimuli and real words were articulated faster than non-words. Adolescents aged 13.0–15.0 years were slower than adults both in real word and in non-word /ˈpataka/ repetition. Additionally, overall boys were significantly faster than girls. These findings show the need to: (a) implement real word stimuli in DDK tasks in order to better depict an individual’s oral-motor abilities and (b) establish language-specific normative data for TD children.

Voice disorders often remain undiagnosed. Many self-perceived questionnaires exist for various medical conditions. Here, we used the Greek Voice Handicap Index (VHI) to address the aforementioned problem. Everyone can fill in the VHI questionnaire and rate their symptoms easily. The innovative feature of this research is the global cut-off score calculated for the VHI. Therefore, the VHI is now capable of helping clinicians establish a more customizable treatment plan with the cut-off point identifying patients without normal phonation. For the purpose of finding the global cut-off point, a group of 180 participants was recruited in Greece (90 non-dysphonic participants and 90 with different types of dysphonia). The voice disordered group had higher VHI scores than those of the control group. In contrast to previous studies, we provided and validated for the first time the cut-off points for all VHI domains and, finally, a global cut-off point through ROC and precision-recall analysis in a voice disordered population. In practice, a score higher than the well-estimated global score indicates (without intervention) a possible voice disorder. Nevertheless, if the score is near the threshold, then the patient should definitely follow preventive measures.

Purpose This study aimed to outline the changing forms of speech-language pathology practices, for both clinical services, as well as the profession's education and practicum training in the time of COVID-19 at the European University Cyprus (EUC). This study also aimed to document the steps taken to continue service delivery safely and effectively for both the EUC's Speech, Language and Hearing Clinic's clients and the speech-language therapy students completing their practicum. Method The steps for the access to and continuity of speech-language therapy services and education/training are outlined chronologically, throughout the different phases of the COVID-19 pandemic status in the country. The rise of telepractice, telesupervision, and distance learning, adapted as solutions to the obstacles caused by the pandemic, are explained in detail, while the benefits and limitations are discussed at each step. The professional development that had to take place before this rise is also described. Conclusions The utilization of online/telecommunication technology for education, practical training, and speech-language pathologist service delivery during the time of COVID-19 in Cyprus is here to stay and will probably affect the future of the profession's clinical practice, and consequently, training programs in Cyprus in the years to come. It is uncertain if the effects of such adaptations can generalize in other populations or countries, especially where regulations and policies are already in place, or where the technological foundation is not similar. Through the benefits and limitations presented, conclusions are drawn for the future applications of telepractice, telesupervision, and distance learning post–COVID-19. Suggestions are made for the possible areas of future research, concerning clinical practice and clinical practicum training, as well as for the need to define regulations and establish these types of services in the country. Supplemental Material https://doi.org/10.23641/asha.15057396

While research undertaken worldwide indicates that mean length of utterance (MLU) is a valuable index in investigations of child language development, to date there have been no studies exploring MLU in pre-primary Cypriot Greek (CYG)-speaking children. The participants in this study were 36 monolingual CYG-speaking children at ages 36, 40, 44 and 48 months, with a typical course of language development. The findings demonstrated that MLU counted in words (MLU-w) of typically developing CYG-speaking children had a positive correlation with age (from 36 to 48 months) and a non-significant difference in MLU-w by gender at each age point, and that typically developing CYG-speaking children, for the age range studied, tended to produce more multiword utterance types. An outcome of this study is an MLU-w database which could be used, with some caution, in the language assessment of a similar population or as the basis for future studies. Areas for further research are identified.

The study aimed at evaluating the diadochokinetic (DDK) skills of Greek-speaking preschool children with Phonological Disorder (PD) by means of a structured evaluation protocol and at proposing cut-off points for children at risk of speech impairment. The participants were 36 children with PD and 60 typically developing (TD) peers. The groups were matched on age and gender. The PD group performed significantly slower than the TD group in all speech DDK tasks, but not in the oral-motor tasks. The ROC analysis showed a statistically significant positive discrimination for all speech tasks. The internal consistency of the protocol was excellent (Cronbach’s α = .844), while complex stimuli showed a better discriminatory ability. The obtained results agree with Dodd’s classification for Speech Sound Disorders (SSDs). Different types of speech stimuli must be included in the evaluation of DDK performance which can be used as a clinical predictor for preschoolers with SSDs who face difficulties in speech maturation.

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