Purpose: The purpose of this study was to explore the effects of medical masks on the voice quality of patients with voice disorders. Method: We included 106 patients diagnosed with voice disorders. Among them, 59 were diagnosed with vocal-fold benign lesions, 27 with insufficient glottis closure, and 20 with precancerous lesions/early-stage…

Purpose: The aims of this study were to analyze and characterize the "irrintzi" (a folkloric shout emitted in a single breath used by the Basque people) acoustically and to describe the mechanism by which it is emitted. Method: Thirty-six sound samples of 12 female volunteers were analyzed. Acoustic analysis included primarily…

Introduction: Speech Language Therapy First Point of Contact Clinic (SLT-FPOCC) models can assist assessment of low-risk patient populations referred to ear, nose and throat (ENT) services. To further improve ENT waitlist management and compliance with best-practice care, consideration of other low-risk populations that could be safely managed…

Background: After total laryngectomy, surgical voice restoration is used to establish communication via tracheoesophageal voice prosthesis. Once voice is established, there is a paucity of information on what speech and language therapists (SLTs) should do to improve tracheoesophageal voice quality to ensure functional communication. No existing…

Background: Over 200,000 patients are referred onto the suspected head and neck cancer (HNC) pathway annually in the UK, with around 3% receiving a cancer diagnosis. With new HNC advancements in identifying patients at low risk of a cancer diagnosis, one proposal is a speech and language therapy (SLT)-led first point of contact clinic for low-risk…

Background: Silent aspiration (SA) is common post-stroke and associated with increased risk of pneumonia, length of stay and healthcare costs. Clinical swallow examinations (CSEs) are unreliable measures of SA. There is no consensus on the clinical components that best detect SA. Cough reflex testing (CRT) is an alternative/adjunct whose SA…

Purpose: This study evaluated the efficacy of a 4-week straw phonation in water (SPW) exercise program on aging-related vocal fold atrophy (VFA), with a secondary objective to examine the immediate effects of SPW exercises. Method: Thirty-eight older adults aged 60 years and above formally diagnosed with aging-related VFA were randomly assigned…

Purpose: Smoothed cepstral peak prominence (CPPS) and harmonics-to-noise ratio (HNR) are acoustic measures related to the periodicity, harmonicity, and noise components of an acoustic signal. To date, there is little evidence about the advantages of CPPS over HNR in voice diagnostics. Recent studies indicate that voice fundamental frequency (F0)…

Purpose: The purpose of this study was to develop a novel teacher-reported pediatric voice outcome measure and to investigate its psychometric properties. Method: In the first stage, a new instrument, the Teacher-Reported Pediatric Voice Handicap Index (TRPVHI), was developed. After item generation, a panel of experts evaluated the items to assess…

Purpose: Auditory-perceptual evaluation is essential for the assessment of voice quality. The Consensus Auditory-Perceptual Evaluation of Voice (CAPE-V) provides a standardized protocol and assessment form for clinicians to analyze the voice quality and has been adapted into several different languages. The aims of this study were to develop the…

Purpose: The Vocal Tract Discomfort Scale (VTD Scale) is a self-rating questionnaire investigating physical symptoms in the larynx associated with vocal pathology. The aim of this work was to investigate the reliability, validity, sensitivity, and specificity of the first German version and to provide normative data with thresholds for pathology…

Purpose: The association between voice alterations, health-related quality of life (HRQL), and chronic respiratory diseases, such as asthma and chronic obstructive pulmonary disease (COPD), has previously been reported. The aim of this study was to test the hypothesis that HRQL and dysphonia-associated handicap of patients diagnosed with asthma or…

Quality of life is a construction used to measure an individual's perspective on their well-being. In modern research, voice and speech disorders have been recognized as indicators of impaired quality of life in children. The aim of this research is to analyze the characteristics of quality of life in children with voice and speech disorders and…

Purpose: The purpose of this study was to describe childhood dysarthria by means of auditory-perceptual analyses covering all speech subsystems. We aimed to identify the most seriously affected auditory-perceptual dimensions in the observed dysarthria profiles and to detect specific markers of childhood dysarthria against the backdrop of typical…

The aim of this study was to test the validity and reliability of the Teachers' Correct Use of their Voices Scale (TCUVS) in classroom management and to try to explain the factors of the scale using the second order factor analysis. The participants of the study were 1095 teachers working at various educational levels in the province of Antalya,…