Evaluation of the /a/ and /i/ sounds of 51 adult subjects with various laryngeal disorders indicated that spectrographic noise and curvilinear derivatives of the period standard deviation provided the best predictions of disorder severity. (Author/DB)

The sustained vowel sounds of 14 noninstitutionalized 7- to 10-year-old children with Down's syndrome were analyzed acoustically for vowel formant amplitude levels. The subjects with Down's syndrome had formant amplitude intensity levels significantly lower than those of a similar group of speakers without Down's syndrome. (Author/DB)

A theoretical four-mass model of the larynx was developed to simulate laryngeal biomechanical behavior and used to evaluate states of asymmetric laryngeal vibration. Simulations of laryngeal paralyses were compared with data on glottal vibration in observed laryngeal function. (Author/JDD)

Two experiments were conducted to assess the correlations of residue features with some perceptual properties of voice disorders. Results suggested that residue features may be useful in assessing the degree of vocal impairment, but use of residue features as correlates of voice quality requires further research. (Author/DB)

Comparison of vocal problems of 50 female aerobic instructors and 50 female aerobic participants by means of questionnaires found that aerobic instructors generally experienced more hoarseness and episodes of voice loss during and after instructing and exhibited a significantly higher prevalence of nodules. (Author/DB)

This study, involving 20 adults, introduced a relative target method to examine the fine force control characteristics of the lips. Load equalization for each lip was accomplished by establishing four submaximal target levels related to maximum voluntary closing force. The upper lip was found to be more stable in controlling force at all levels.…

Acoustic phonatory events were identified in 14 women diagnosed with adductor spasmodic dysphonia (ADSD), a focal laryngeal dystonia that disturbs phonatory function, and compared with those of 14 age-matched women with no vocal dysfunction. Findings indicated ADSD subjects produced more aberrant acoustic events than controls during tasks of…

The study examined the speech production strategies used by 4 young children (30- to 32-months-old) with cleft palate and velopharyngeal inadequacy during the early stages of phonological learning. All the children had had primary palatal surgery and were producing primarily single word utterances with a few 2- and 3-word phrases. Analysis of each…

Sixteen listeners (10 expert, 6 naive) judged the dissimilarity of pairs of voices drawn from pathological and normal populations. Only parameters that showed substantial variability were perceptually salient across listeners. Results suggest that traditional means of assessing listener reliability in voice perception tasks may not be appropriate.…

This paper describes the Vocal Demodulator as a new device for analysis of vocal tremor. The Vocal Demodulator produces amplitude-demodulated and frequency-demodulated outputs and measures the frequency and level of low-frequency tremor components in sustained phonation. The paper describes quantification of the demodulation process, validation…

This study of 21 children (ages 4-6) found that children with stuttering and disordered phonology produced more sound prolongations and fewer iterations per whole-word repetition than did children who stuttered but had normal phonology. No differences were noted between children with stuttering and disordered phonology and children with disordered…

This study correlated measures of nasalance computed by the Nasometer with listener judgments of nasality of speech passages spoken by 25 children with craniofacial disorders. Results showed a significant correlation between nasalance and nasality only when nasal consonants were not included in the passage spoken. (Author/DB)

Intraoral air pressure was recorded during the production of consonant cognate pairs by 8 esophageal speakers (mean age 67 years) under 2 experimental conditions: after the insufflation of air and without air insufflation. Results revealed that peak intraoral air pressure magnitudes were significantly greater following the insufflation of air than…

The study investigated (1) the reliability of children's (N=10 in grades 1, 3, and 5) judgments of vocal roughness, (2) normal-abnormal cut-off values for these judgments, and (3) children's ratings versus adult clinician ratings of the same samples. Results indicated child judgments commensurate with that of clinicians. (Author/DB)

Results of nasalance measurements of 18 hearing-impaired children (ages 3-11) under the conditions of aided speech, unaided speech, and speech with amplification found no significant differences when comparisons were made between younger and older groups and when made according to the severity of hearing loss. (Author/DB)