Abstract
The purpose of this study was to assess the effect of speaking rate variation on aerodynamic and acoustic measures of velopharyngeal (VP) function. Twenty-seven healthy adult speakers (14 males, 13 females) participated in the study. The modified pressure-flow method was used to collect aerodynamic data of /m/ and /p/ segments in the word ‘hamper’ and the utterances ‘Mama made some lemon jam’ (MMJ) and ‘Buy Bobby a puppy’ (BBP). SPL was collected simultaneously with aerodynamic data for all utterances. A Nasometer was used to obtain nasalance scores and nasalance distance for MMJ and BBP. Sentences were produced at normal, fast, slow, and slowest speaking rates. The results showed that nasal airflow and VP orifice area were unaffected by speaking rate variations in males and females, whereas intra-oral pressure appeared to decrease as speaking rate slowed for both speaker groups. However, this effect was removed by statistically controlling SPL. Nasalance and nasalance distance (MMJ – BBP) did not change with speaking rate variation. There was a statistical difference between nasalance scores produced by male and female speakers. The results suggested that aerodynamic and acoustic measures of velopharyngeal function are not affected by variation in speaking rate in healthy males and females.
Highlights
The purpose of this study was to investigate the effect of speaking rate on aerodynamic and acoustic measures of velopharyngeal (VP) function in healthy speakers
Durational measures computed across speakers for each utterance used for the aerodynamic and nasometric recordings are reported in Tables 2 and 3, respectively
They revealed that participants changed their speaking rate for each speaking rate condition
Summary
The purpose of this study was to investigate the effect of speaking rate on aerodynamic and acoustic measures of velopharyngeal (VP) function in healthy speakers. This study was motivated by the lack of a detailed investigation of this type in current literature and the need, from a clinical perspective, to distinguish effects of disease on VP dysfunction from those related to speaking rate changes which are common in individuals with motor speech disorders. Speaking rate was found to be slower than baseline in these speakers and has been generally found to decline early in ALS (Ball, Willis, Beukelman, & Pattee, 2001; Ball, Beukelman, & Pattee, 2002; Yorkston, Strand, Miller, Hillel, & Smith, 1993). The nature of the relationship between these two variables must be understood in order to distinguish the changes associated with muscular abnormalities (e.g., weakness) in the VP mechanism from those that are due to adjustments in speaking rate that could be related to impairments across the speech system as a whole or could be compensatory in nature (Yorkston, Beukelman, Strand, & Bell, 1999)
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