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)

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)

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…

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)

A new method to calculate a spectral harmonics-to-noise (HNR) ratio is presented. The method discriminates between harmonic and noise energy in the magnitude spectrum by means of a comb-filtering operation in the cepstrum domain. HNR is seen to be a useful parameter in the analysis of voice quality. (Author/DB)

This study compared the retention patterns obtained for children diagnosed with phonological disorders, 10 with developmental apraxia of speech and 10 with phonologically based speech areas. In both groups, in cases of sound substitutions, voicing was retained most frequently and place of articulation least frequently. An inverse relationship…

Discussion of speech sampling in the assessment of children with phonological disorders focuses on the use of nonlinear phonological analysis, a method whereby multiple aspects or levels of a child's phonological system are examined. Principles and suggestions offer general guidance for adequate sample elicitation. (Contains references.)…

This study analyzed production of a long vowel sound within Finnish words by normal or dysphonic voices, using the Self-Organizing Map, the artificial neural network algorithm of T. Kohonen which produces two-dimensional representations of speech. The method was found to be both sensitive and specific in the detection of dysphonia. (Author/JDD)