Purpose: Ambulatory voice biofeedback has the potential to significantly improve voice therapy effectiveness by targeting carryover of desired behaviors outside the therapy session (i.e., retention). This study applies motor learning concepts (reduced frequency and delayed, summary feedback) that demonstrate increased retention to ambulatory voice…

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: The purpose of this study was to determine the vocal fold structural and vibratory symmetries that are important to vocal function and voice quality in a simulated paramedian vocal fold paralysis. Method: A computational kinematic speech production model was used to simulate an exemplar "voice" on the basis of asymmetric…

Purpose: The aim of the study was to address the reported inconsistencies in the relationship between objective acoustic measures and perceptual ratings of vocal quality. Method: This tutorial moves away from the more widely examined problems related to obtaining the perceptual ratings and the acoustic measures and centers in less scrutinized…

Background: Respiratory muscle impairment following cervical spinal cord injury (CSCI) may lead to reduced voice function, although the individual variation is large. Voice problems in this population may not always receive attention since individuals with CSCI face other, more acute and life-threatening issues that need/receive attention.…

While many music teachers are familiar with strategies to prevent damage due to vocal abuse or misuse, they are generally not acquainted with other vocal problems that can affect their own or their students' singing ability. Such damage can also occur when playing a wind instrument. While vocal abuse and misuse are commonly understood in music…

Purpose: This study aims to investigate the effects of dysphonic voice on speech intelligibility in Cantonese-speaking adults. Method: Speech recordings from three speakers with dysphonia secondary to phonotrauma and three speakers with healthy voices were presented to 30 healthy listeners (15 men and 15 women; M[subscript age] = 22.7 years) under…

Purpose: Assessment of strained voice quality is difficult due to the weak reliability of auditory-perceptual evaluation and lack of strong acoustic correlates. This study evaluated the contributions of relative fundamental frequency (RFF) and mid-to-high frequency noise to the perception of strain. Method: Stimuli were created using recordings of…

Purpose: Semi-occluded vocal tract (SOVT) exercises with tubes or straws have been widely used for a variety of voice disorders. Yet, the effects of longer periods of SOVT exercises (lasting for weeks) on the aging voice are not well understood. This study investigated the effects of a 6-week straw phonation in water (SPW) exercise program.…

Purpose: The purpose of this article is to examine the ability of an acoustic measure, relative fundamental frequency (RFF), to distinguish between two subtypes of vocal hyperfunction (VH): phonotraumatic (PVH) and non-phonotraumatic (NPVH). Method: RFF values were compared among control individuals with typical voices (N = 49), individuals with…

Purpose: Auditory-perceptual evaluation is essential for the clinical assessment of voice disorders. Unstable perceptual voice evaluation has been shown for inexperienced listeners as compared to expert listeners. We examined the effects of perceptual training with external auditory anchors with and without immediate feedback on the evaluation of…

Speech disorders occur commonly in individuals with Down syndrome (DS), although data regarding the auditory-perceptual speech features are limited. This descriptive study assessed 47 perceptual speech features during connected speech samples in 26 children with DS. The most severely affected speech features were: naturalness, imprecise…

Objectives: The purposes of this study were to validate the Acoustic Breathiness Index (ABI) for the Japanese-speaking population and to determine whether it is independent of factors such as sex, age, and perceptual ratings of roughness. Method: First, the concurrent validity of the ABI for perceptual breathiness was evaluated on the…

Purpose: The purpose of this study was to investigate the characteristics of diplophonia using an auditory perception and multimodal simultaneous examination, which included sound waveform analysis, electroglottography (EGG), digital kymography (DKG), and 2-dimensional scanning digital kymography (2D DKG). Additionally, we compared the diagnostic…

Purpose: Our goal was to test prevailing assumptions about the underlying biomechanical and aeroacoustic mechanisms associated with phonotraumatic lesions of the vocal folds using a numerical lumped-element model of voice production. Method: A numerical model with a triangular glottis, posterior glottal opening, and arytenoid posturing is…