Folia phoniatrica最新文献

Recordings were made at the beginning and end of workdays of teachers who experience vocal fatigue (n = 22) and those who do not experience fatigue (n = 17). Those who experienced fatigue were recorded on days in which they did and did not fatigue. Both groups evaluated their vocal characteristics, each time they made a recording. Subsequently, a listener panel evaluated the same characteristics from the recordings. Both groups estimated the amount and characteristics of their talking time, completed a psychological evaluation and provided medical histories. The authors interpret the data obtained as indicating that the vocal characteristics of teachers who fatigue and those who do not fatigue are similar on days the former group does not fatigue and that the two groups are similar in the amount and loudness of their talking time, at work and at home. However, teachers who fatigue tend to spend more time in activities that appear to be vocally demanding and are more likely to perceive situations as being anxiety producing. Teachers who fatigue tend to be in good health, but have had more hearing problems and allergies than their colleagues and more of their family members have had voice problems.

The article gives one of the possible explanations of the complex event which may be registered when recording the vibrations from the thyroid cartilage in ventral-dorsal direction during phonation and approximately in two octaves of the modal voice. The alternating displacement of the vibrating thyroid cartilage is caused apparently by the alternating increase and decrease in the resulting pressure force acting upon the vocal folds. For the time being the adduced hypothesis does not take into consideration specific reflex activity, in spite of the fact that it can probably be expected with lesions of the nervous system on the basis of the typically changed manifestations.

Speech was analyzed about 1 year postoperatively in 30 patients with cleft lip and palate who were the first ones to undergo late closure of the hard palate in Gothenburg, Sweden. Fourteen had bilateral and 16 had unilateral clefts. Soft palate closure had been performed at the mean age of 8 months, and the hard palate was closed at the mean age of 8 years with a range of 7-11 years. Imitated and spontaneous speech was analyzed at an average of 15 months after palatal repair. Six percent had moderate to severe hypernasal speech and 23% had retraction of dental consonants. No glottal articulation was found. Hoarseness and deviant s articulation were frequent. For 6 of the patients the same speech analysis was also made 1-3 months postoperatively. At this time there was no change in the speech of these 6 children compared with preoperative speech. Thus, the closure of the palate did not improve the speech directly. The improvement of the speech seems to be a gradual process.

Only a few singers are able to use to whistle voice, normally to produce extremely high pitches at the upper limit of their range. The laryngeal mechanism of the whistle voice is not completely understood. Stroboscopy shows only a horizontal vibration, the entire length of the vocal cords vibrating. The vocal cords are stretched to their maximal length. The spectral analysis of the whistle voice shows that the first two partials are much more pronounced than the higher ones. The 3D-PAN of the modal register is more complex than that of the whistle register.

We studied the effect occurring in close proximity before the phonation start and give an account of the microdramas taking place upon the glottis immediately before the phonation start in a group of individuals suffering from balbuties (60 children and adolescents from 9 to 14 years of age) and an equally large control group suffering from no such speech defect. In the group of children and adolescents with balbuties only less than 4% of the cases showed undisturbed regular phonation starts, whereas in the control group it was almost as much as 90%.

Inflammatory changes of the upper respiratory airway mucosa are very often observed in phonoponoses. While treating phonoponoses, we frequently find that general practitioners and even otorhinolaryngologists, while paying greatest attention to this component, neglect treatment for voice and phonatory pattern disturbance, and the patients are referred to a phonitrician with delay. The aim of the work is to study the frequency of inflammatory processes of the upper respiratory airways in phonoponoses and an attempt to establish the connection between these changes and the development of phonoponoses. The study involved 358 patients with different types of phonoponoses. Inflammatory changes were found in 84.6% of the cases, which was statistically highly significant. With inflammatory processes on the vocal organs the appearance of phonoponoses is facilitated. In that sense the inflammatory processes are risk factors in the appearance of phonoponoses.

The breathing patterns of two speakers engaging in a spontaneous conversation were studied. The variations observed in duration and air flow on inspiratory and expiratory phases indicated the following: Two of the factors which determine respiratory rhythm during speech are inspired air volume and expiration duration. The pragmatic constraints of dialogue constitute genuine constraints, such that the speaker's breathing is adapted to the dialogue rather than the dialogue being adapted to the breathing. No respiratory evidence was found to support the hypothesis of verbal unit ("sentence") preprogramming. On the contrary, the close relationship between conversational phenomena and respiratory phenomena indicates that there are no complete verbal units in dialogue.

The electroglottogram (EEG) is known to be related to the motion of vocal folds. The major hypothesis is that the EGG is related to the area of contact of the vocal folds. EGG is thought to be incapable of measuring or monitoring non-contact type vibratory events in the larynx. Recently it was demonstrated by fast Fourier transformation (FFT) analysis of EGG curves that the resulting EGG can be interpreted as a sum of a 'laryngeal fundamental with overtones'. This necessitates a new interpretation of normal EGG waveshape. This study was undertaken to prove the hypothesis that (pathological) EGG curves contain information even about non-contact type vibratory events in the larynx during phonation when analyzed by FFT. Patients with vocal fold paralysis were asked to phonate sustained vowels (/a/, /e/, /i/, /o/, /u/). Voice sounds and EGG signals were recorded simultaneously, routed to a frequency analyzer and subjected to real-time FFT analysis. In all cases original EGG signals would have been classified as pathological. However, in all recordings the laryngeal fundamental frequency and--in some patients--overtones with their intensities could be extracted and compared to harmonics extracted from voice sound. This is the first report of FFT analysis of EGG signals in patients with vocal fold paralysis. It is proposed that vocal folds vibratory events may be of non-contact type and that they can be monitored by analysis of glottic impedance.

A standardized, perceptually based description of hoarseness is of importance for clinical purposes (e.g. therapy evaluation) as well as in research on voice disorders. The reliability and relevance of perceptual parameters are investigated. The GRBAS scale parameters quite well fit the criteria: low intrajudge and interjudge variance but high intervoice variance. The best correlation between judges (0.7) is found for the overall grade of severity. Impressions of the asthenic-strained voice quality are less consistent, but still show a significant interjudge correlation. The overall grade of severity seems to be mainly determined by the component breathiness. Roughness and breathiness are negatively correlated with each other. Tonus is correlated neither with roughness nor breathiness. The GRBAS profiles significantly differ between the different pathological groups.