Nasalance and nasality in children with cochlear implants and children with hearing aids

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Vocal characteristics of middle-aged premenopausal women

Aging influences the laryngeal anatomy and physiology, leading to altered vocal quality. In middle-aged women, the voice is affected by a combination of aging and menopausal transition. However, in many studies about vocal aging, the menopausal transition is not taken into account. The purpose of this study was to measure and describe the effect of aging on the vocal characteristics by comparing young women (between 20 and 28 years) and middle-aged premenopausal women (between 45 and 52 years). To determine the vocal characteristics in both groups, objective (aerodynamic measurements, vocal performance measurements, acoustic analysis, and a determination of the Dysphonia Severity Index) and subjective assessment techniques (perceptual evaluation, videostroboscopic evaluation, and Voice Handicap Index) were used. The middle-aged premenopausal women showed a smaller frequency and intensity range, a lower habitual fundamental frequency, and a higher soft phonation index compared with the young women. The results of this study are important when studying the voices of middle-aged women. Vocal characteristics of middle-aged women differ from young women, and these changes cannot only be because of hormonal changes during the menopause

Spraakproductie bij prelinguaal dove kinderen

status: publishe

Speech characteristics in early implanted children compared to hearing aid users

Goal: The speech of deaf children is often characterized by difficulties in articulation, phonation, and resonance which can adversely affect the overall intelligibility. This study investigate the above mentioned aspects of speech production of 40 Flemish CI children and compare these aspects with those of 34 children using hearing aids (HA) and 42 normal hearing (NH) children. Methods: Speech samples were video-recorded for further phonetic and phonological analysis. The F1 and F2 of the vowels [a], [i] and [u] were measured using the PRAAT software. The objective vocal quality was perceptual evaluated and measured by means of the Dysphonia Severity Index (DSI). Nasal resonance was investigated using the Nasometer and perceptual evaluations. Finally, intelligibility was perceptually judged using a five-point hierarchical scale and a “percentage of words correctly understood” was calculated. Results: The consonant production of CI children is more adequate than the production of HA children with a hearing loss of 70dB or more. The vowel production in CI children and HA children is characterised by several subtle but significant deviations compared to NH children. The mean DSI value of the CI children was not significantly different from those of the NH children and HA children. But the voice of CI and HA children was characterized by a slight grade of hoarseness, roughness and strained phonation. In the HA children also higher pitch and intensity levels ware observed. CI children as well as HA children showed lower nasalance values for nasal stimuli compared to NH children but higher nasal values for the oral stimuli. In both, cul-de-sac-resonance was observed on a significantly larger scale than in the NH group, and the HA children were judged to be significantly more hypernasal compared to NH children. The intelligibility of the CI children appears to be very close to the intelligibility of NH children. The HA children on the other hand, showed inferior intelligibility scores. Conclusion: CI’s are shown to have a beneficial effect on the speech production and intelligibility, of deaf children. This results in speech production outcomes higher than in moderate-to-severely hearing impaired HA children and even comparable to NH children in some cases. On the other hand, this study also describes possible speech production errors which can persist after implantation

A comparison of the perceptual evaluation of speech production between bilaterally implanted children, unilaterally implanted children, children using hearing aids, and normal-hearing children

Objective: The purpose of this study was to compare the perceptual evaluation of several speech characteristics between bilaterally implanted children (biCI), unilaterally implanted children (uniCI), children using hearing aids (HA), and normal-hearing children (NH). Design: Perceptual evaluations of intelligibility, phonation, resonance, and articulation were compared between the several subgroups. Study sample: Thirteen biCI children, 14 uniCI children, 10 HA children using hearing aids and 11 NH children participated. Results: The biCI children did not show statistically significant differences with the NH children for overall intelligibility, phonation, and resonance. Yet, significantly more distortions and consonant cluster reductions were observed in the biCI children compared with the NH children. In comparison with the uniCI and HA children, the NH as well as the biCI children obtained better evaluations for intelligibility, phonation, resonance, and articulation of consonants. Conclusions: The results of this study demonstrated a possible additional beneficial effect of bilateral implantation on several speech characteristics of prelingually deaf children and as a consequence highlighted the interest of further research

A comparison of the consonant production between Dutch children using cochlear implants and children using hearing aids

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