Aerodynamic Analysis Of Voice In Persons With Laryngopharyngeal Reflux

Objectives of the study: The individuals with laryngopharyngeal reflux are prone for aspiration of refluxed contents and so there is a need for aerodynamic evaluation in these individuals. Hence, the present study investigated the aerodynamic characteristics in individuals with Laryngopharyngeal reflux. Study design: Prospective control group design. Method: Thirty laryngopharyngeal reflux subjects and 30 normal subjects participated in the study. Aerodynamic parameters such as vital capacity, mean air flow rate, maximum phonation duration and phonation quotient were measured using Aero Phone Instrument ((Model 6800). Independent t test was employed for statistical inference. Results: The results revealed that the vital capacity and maximum phonation duration values were lower for laryngopharyngeal reflux subjects when compared to normal controls. No significant differences were observed for mean air flow rate and phonation quotient. Conclusions: The results revealed that the laryngopharyngeal reflux individuals showed significant deviations in aerodynamic parameters when compared to normal individuals. Thus study confirms aerodynamic abnormalities in laryngopharyngeal reflux subject

DPOAE in HIV infected adults

HIV infection is associated with impairment of hearing function, at any stage of disease causing complication to the external, middle, inner ear and CNS. Audiological manifestation of HIV is a direct consequence of virus or secondary to the pharmacological treatment or viral complication. \ud Objectives: There is paucity of information pertaining to hearing status in HIV. As the deafness can occur at any stage of HIV with varying degree and people with HIV live longer, there is need to address the hearing problems in these individuals. So this study aimed detecting the outer hair cell functioning by doing DPOAE in normal hearing HIV infected adults.\ud Method: The experimental group comprised of 12 HIV infected (24 ears) within 20 to 40 years. The age matched control group comprised of 15 subjects (30 ears). All the subjects had normal hearing sensitivity. Initially puretone audiometry and immittance was performed for the subject selection. Subsequently DPOAE procedure was done. \ud Results: The DPOAE was abnormal in 50% of the subjects.\ud Conclusion: It can be concluded that the cochlear involvement is a common observation in HIV infected individuals. DPOAE test can be used as a tool for early identification of cochlear pathology in HIV infected

Cervical Auscultation: A Systematic Review

Cervical auscultation refers to the technique of listening to the sounds of swallowing using a stethoscope or other measurement device such as placing microphone on the surface of the neck. This is based on the assumption that the normal biological sounds will be different from the abnormal biological sounds. The clinical applications of cervical auscultation were reviewed and discussed Keywords: Cervical auscultation, swallow sounds, swallowing assessment, biological sound

ASPECTS OF EMOTIONAL PROSODY IN MALAYALAM AND HINDI

Emotional prosody is considered as the ability to express emotions. Intonation is one parameter of prosody that gives information on the production aspects of emotions. The aim was to study the intonation patterns in two languages, Malayalam and Hindi, from two different language groups in India and also to document if there are differences in the patterns produced across gender groups. Eight native speakers of Malayalam and Hindi, in the age range of 18-40 years were considered for the study (two males and two females for each of the languages). Simple sentences with five basic emotions were used as the stimuli and the samples were recorded in Motor Speech Profile software (MSP) of Computerized Speech Lab 4150. The patterns were plotted using the PHH model. Acoustic data were subjected to statistical analysis, using Mann Whitney U Test (SPSS Version 16).The results of this study reveal that across the five emotions, the terminal intonation pattern has a falling contour, except for the emotion of anger in females, which has a raising contour. This was observed in both the languages. On subjective observation, there were instances of differences in the patterns across the genders, but these were not statistically significant

An Auditory-Visual Conflict of Emotions - Evidence from McGurk Effect

Experiments such as the McGurk effect have supported the inter-dependence of the auditory and visual modalities. This perceptive reasoning is in line with the assumption that emotional expressions in the face and voice are processed by the same perceptual/cognitive mechanism. This research aimed to study the accuracy of the identification of intended emotions in the Kannada language using the auditory and/or visual modality; and also to study its perception using the McGurk paradigm. An emotionally neutral word “namaskara†was uttered by a native Kannada speaker in four basic emotions. Subjects were asked to identify the intended emotional expressions under the different experimental conditions (unimodal, bimodal-I, bimodal-II). The scores were recorded and analysed respectively. The results were in line with studies who also stated the over-reliance of visual over auditory modality when the subjects were presented with the McGurk stimuli thereby also perceiving a new different emotion. Key words: McGurk effect, bimodal, emotional, Kannada, stimul

Auditory Measures of Attention & Working Memory in Children with Learning Disability & Typically Developing Children

Learning disability is a general term that describes specific kinds of learning problems. Children with learning disability have deficits in selective attention and working memory. It is believed that difficulties in working memory will influence the ability to attend to a task. The present study was done to investigate and compare the performances of children with learning disability and typically developing children in tasks evaluating auditory aspects of selective attention, divided attention and working memory capacity. 19 children with age range 10 to 14 years participated in the study. Typically developing children group consisted of 10 participants. Learning disability group consisted of 9 children. Dichotic Listening test, auditory stroop task and Digit Backward Recall task were the tests used for assessment of selective attention, divided attention and working memory capacity. Repeated measures of ANOVA was performed to investigate the effects of group (learning disability group and typically developing children group) and ear (Directed Right, directed left and free listening) in dichotic listening task. The test result showed significant main effect of group and ear as well as children in both the groups performed best for directed right condition of directed left task followed by free listening and directed left condition. Independent ‘t’ test results  revealed that there was a significant differences in stroop reaction time, digit backward recall and stroop score.  In conclusion typically developing children performed better than that of children with learning disability in both tasks. Keywords: learning disability, typically, childre

Pervasive Developmental Disorder Not Otherwise Specified: A case study on Mother- Child interaction

Autism Spectrum disorders (ASD) are group of disorders exhibits triads of symptoms like deficits in communication, social interaction and presence of stereotypic behaviors. Deficits in social reciprocity skills are the core feature of ASD. Studies have reported that parents being important participants in a communication context; the nature of parent-child interaction would be one of the important components that would affect the language acquisition process in children. The present study attempted to explore patterns of mother’s interaction with her child with Pervasive Developmental Disorders-Not Otherwise Specified and findings revealed that the style of mother’s interaction is different compared to normal children. So it can be hypothesized that the inadequate language in child was maintained because of mother’s poorer language modeling. Keywords: Autism, Parent Child interaction, social reciprocity, Pervasive Developmental Disorders- Not Otherwise Specified

DPOAE in HIV infected adults

HIV infection is associated with impairment of hearing function, at any stage of disease causing complication to the external, middle, inner ear and CNS. Audiological manifestation of HIV is a direct consequence of virus or secondary to the pharmacological treatment or viral complication. Objectives: There is paucity of information pertaining to hearing status in HIV. As the deafness can occur at any stage of HIV with varying degree and people with HIV live longer, there is need to address the hearing problems in these individuals. So this study aimed detecting the outer hair cell functioning by doing DPOAE in normal hearing HIV infected adults.Method: The experimental group comprised of 12 HIV infected (24 ears) within 20 to 40 years. The age matched control group comprised of 15 subjects (30 ears). All the subjects had normal hearing sensitivity. Initially puretone audiometry and immittance was performed for the subject selection. Subsequently DPOAE procedure was done. Results: The DPOAE was abnormal in 50% of the subjects.Conclusion: It can be concluded that the cochlear involvement is a common observation in HIV infected individuals. DPOAE test can be used as a tool for early identification of cochlear pathology in HIV infected

Aerodynamic Analysis Of Voice In Persons With Laryngopharyngeal Reflux

Objectives of the study: The individuals with laryngopharyngeal reflux are prone for aspiration of refluxed contents and so there is a need for aerodynamic evaluation in these individuals. Hence, the present study investigated the aerodynamic characteristics in individuals with Laryngopharyngeal reflux. Study design: Prospective control group design. Method: Thirty laryngopharyngeal reflux subjects and 30 normal subjects participated in the study. Aerodynamic parameters such as vital capacity, mean air flow rate, maximum phonation duration and phonation quotient were measured using Aero Phone Instrument ((Model 6800). Independent t test was employed for statistical inference. Results: The results revealed that the vital capacity and maximum phonation duration values were lower for laryngopharyngeal reflux subjects when compared to normal controls. No significant differences were observed for mean air flow rate and phonation quotient. Conclusions: The results revealed that the laryngopharyngeal reflux individuals showed significant deviations in aerodynamic parameters when compared to normal individuals. Thus study confirms aerodynamic abnormalities in laryngopharyngeal reflux subjects

EFFICACY OF MANIPAL MANUAL OF SWALLOWING ASSESSMENT IN IDENTIFYING ASPIRATION

Background: There are also many formal assessment tools available for the assessment of swallowing. Among these, there are few published clinical dysphagia assessment tools that provide detailed assessment of swallowing. One of the tool which has been psychometrically validated and standardized for the Indian population is Manipal Manual for Swallowing Assessment (MMSA) which involves the assessment of structure, sensory and motor functions along with trial feed. This test is used in the present study to check for its efficacy in the identification of aspiration.Method: A total of 25 individuals participated in the study. All the individuals were diagnosed to have Dysphagia based on MMSA [35]. All the 25 individuals underwent MMSA test. Individuals with suspected aspiration and no aspiration were identified by experienced speech pathologists in the field of swallowing disorders. All these individuals were subjected to videofluroscopy testings to confirm aspiration. Concurrent validity for MMSA was established through the measurement of sensitivity, specificity, positive predictive value, negative predictive value and the efficiency.Results: Results revealed that 77% of the individuals with aspiration were actually aspirators whereas 67 % of the predicted individuals with no aspiration were actually the non aspirators and hence this test can be used to identify individuals with aspiration with overall efficiency of 72 %.Conclusions: Results revealed a high sensitivity and specifivicity for MMSA. Thus, MMSA is proven a valuable tool in the dysphagia assessment, in particularly aspiratio