Speech Therapy (Rehabilitation Therapy) in Foreign Accent Syndrome in a Turkish Patient: A Case Report

: One of the consequences of a stroke in human is a foreign accentual syndrome, which is often caused by trauma or stroke. One of the most important injuries in this syndrome is a disruption in prosodic units. The present report is about a 47-year-old woman with a brain tumor who speaks with a different accent than hers. Acoustic analyses were performed using the Praat software version 6.0.35. This paper indicates consistency with most of the damage reports in prosodic units, including stress, rhythm, pause, and speed of speech. Significant changes occurred in the prosodic units of the patient under study within 12 weeks. In addition to the decrease in the number of pauses and speech duration of the patient, pitch variations, increased coordination, and precision in articulation, also an increase in the expression of the number of words was observed during the patient’s speech. Due to the rarity of foreign accent syndrome, further research in this area is important for speech and language pathologists in terms of differential diagnosis and speech therapy.

Foreign Accent Syndrome: A Rare Sequelae after Orthognathic Surgery

Background: Foreign accent syndrome is a rare speech disorder in which patients develop a sudden change in accent (eg, from American English to British accent) secondary to neurogenic, psychogenic, structural, or mixed causes. Orthognathic surgery may produce alterations in speech in select patients. Until now, foreign accent syndrome has not been noted after orthognathic surgery. Methods: A retrospective study of patients who underwent orthognathic surgery and developed foreign accent syndrome was conducted to document surgical details, postoperative course, speech evaluations, perioperative imaging and follow-up outcome (n = 5). Results: Patients who developed FAS after orthognathic procedures had an age range of 19 to 42 years and changed speech from American English to a British accent almost immediately in the postoperative period. There were no perioperative complications. Speech therapy revealed similar speech patterns and articulation changes. Patients found speech therapy helpful and all but 1 patient had resolution of their FAS speech within 2 years. Conclusion: Foreign Accent Syndrome is very rare but may result after orthognathic surgery when presumably a minor neurologic insult from temporary brain ischemia occurs during surgery. However, this phenomenon typically resolves and speech therapy may be helpful.

What do we know about Foreign Accent Syndrome? – Letter to the Editor

Foreign accent syndrome (FAS) is a speech disorder with sudden changes in speech patterns resulting in affected people perceived to have a new non-native accent. Characteristic changes in language concluded in interviews provide some initial insight into the syndrome.1 The control group (without disorders) had normal speech and grammar, patients with language-speech disorders faced difficulty in speaking whereas FAS patients were labelled ‘foreign’ due to frequent hesitation, slow speech, inappropriate grammar and word selection.1 A great deal of time has been dedicated to understanding FAS, however, a varied patient presentation and underlying pathophysiology has led to difficulties in diagnosing the disorder and evaluating its true epidemiology.

Speech in the foreign accent syndrome: differential diagnosis between organic and functional cases

ABSTRACT. Foreign accent syndrome (FAS) is an extremely rare disorder, with 112 cases described until 2019. We compare two cases of the foreign accent syndrome in native speakers of Brazilian Portuguese in its classic form (FAS) and psychiatric variant (FALS). Two cases were analyzed: (1) a right-handed, 69-year-old man, with a prior history of stroke, and (2) a right-handed, 43-year-old woman, diagnosed with schizophrenia. They were evaluate for language and speech, including the speech intelligibility. Both patients had speech impairments complaints, similar to a new accent, without previous exposure to a foreign language. However, the onset of the speech disorder was sudden in case 1 and insidious and with transient events in case 2, with speech intelligibility scores of 95.5 and 55.3% respectively. Besides neurologic impairment, the clinical presentation of FALS was extremely severe and differed to that expected in FAS cases, in which speech intelligibility is preserved.