Purpose: Vocal roughness is often present in many voice disorders but the assessment of roughness mainly depends on the subjective auditory-perceptual evaluation and lacks acoustic correlates. This study aimed to apply the concept of roughness in general sound quality perception to vocal roughness assessment and to characterize the relationship…

Purpose: To better define the clinical characteristics of idiopathic oromandibular dystonia, we studied voice, speech, and swallowing disorders and their impact on activities of daily living. Method: Fourteen consecutive patients with idiopathic oromandibular dystonia and 14 matched, healthy control subjects were included in the study. Results:…

The auditory system helps regulate phonation. A speaker's perception of their own voice is likely to be of both emotional and functional significance. Although many investigations have observed deviating voice qualities in individuals who are prelingually deaf or profoundly hearing impaired, less is known regarding how older adults with acquired…

Background: Altered auditory feedback can facilitate speech fluency in adults who stutter. However, other findings suggest that adults who stutter show anomalies in "audiovocal integration", such as longer phonation reaction times to auditory stimuli and less effective pitch tracking. Aims: To study audiovocal integration in adults who stutter…

Purpose: This investigation examined the effects of nebulized hypertonic saline, isotonic saline (IS), and sterile (hypotonic) water on phonation threshold pressure (PTP) and self-perceived phonatory effort (PPE) following a surface laryngeal dehydration challenge. Method: In a double-blind, randomized experimental trial, 60 vocally healthy women…

Purpose: Maximum flow declination rate (MFDR) in the glottis is known to correlate strongly with vocal intensity in voicing. This declination, or negative slope on the glottal airflow waveform, is in part attributable to the maximum area declination rate (MADR) and in part to the overall inertia of the air column of the vocal tract (lungs to…

Vocal folds undergo osmotic challenge by mouth breathing during singing, exercising, and loud speaking. Just 15 min of obligatory oral breathing, to dry the vocal folds, increases phonation threshold pressure (P[subscript th]) and expiratory vocal effort in healthy speakers (M. Sivasankar & K. Fisher, 2002). We questioned whether oral breathing is…

Modal and falsetto registers are the basic vocal qualities used in female speaking voices. The purpose of this study was to identify the frequency at which modal register changed to falsetto register and the frequency range of each modal and falsetto register produced under three loudness levels: soft, comfortable and loud phonations in normal and…

Ten adults with dysarthria of various etiologies, type, and severity were compared to age-matched and gender-matched nondysarthric speakers on 40 short sentences. Results indicated reduced intonation values for the dysarthric group and varying rates as a function of subject group and sentence type. Results suggest that dysarthria is a deficit in…

A large percentage of patients who have undergone laryngectomy to treat advanced laryngeal cancer rely on an electrolarynx (EL) to communicate verbally. Although serviceable, EL speech is plagued by shortcomings in both sound quality and intelligibility. This study sought to better quantify the relative contributions of previously identified…