Development and Usefulness of Hypernasality Control Device: A Preliminary Study

The purpose of this study was to compare nasalance scores of the experimental paragraphs and sentences with and without ‘Hypernasality Control Device (HCD)’ and to determine the degree of foreign body sensation and pain with HCD. A 44-year-old normal adult woman wore type I and type II HCD, and then she was asked to read aloud the experimental paragraphs and sentences. Using a Nasometer, the nasalance scores were measured. The subject responded to a questionnaire with 5-point scale to measure the degree of foreign body sensation and pain after wearing two types of HCD. In all experimental paragraphs and sentences, the nasalance scores with HCD were measured lower than those of without HCD. In addition, there was no foreign body sensation and pain with HCD, or it was at a slight level. These results showed that HCD played a role in regulating nasal resonance in a normal adult woman. It is expected that the HCD will contribute to the control of the nasalance scores in hypernasality subjects. And simplify the production process and continuous modification are required for efficient application and the appropriate HCD size and shape.

Nasality and nasalance-from the subjective to an objective assessment

Nasalance is an important concept in the field of resonance speech disorders as opposed to nasality. It ensures the objective measurements of the nasal production, aspect that reduces the value of nasality, for sure an older concept than nasalance. This article underlines especially the fact that both nasalance and nasality are two dimensions of the same reality, the assessment of resonances and that both of them are in the same time important and useful in order to establish a correct diagnosis and to prepare the suitable therapeutic program. The dispute nasalance and nasality is solved based on concrete application by using the nasometer and scales for measuring nasality. Conclusions support the idea that nasalance and nasality are two facets of the complex assessment in case of nasal resonance.

Nasalization Amplitude-Timing Characteristics of Speakers With and Without Cleft Palate

Objectives: To examine the amplitude-temporal relationships of acoustic nasalization in speakers with a range of nasality and to determine the extent to which each domain independently predicts the speaker’s perceived oral-nasal balance. Design: Rate-controlled speech samples, consisting of /izinizi/, /azanaza/, and /uzunuzu/, were recorded from 18 participants (14 with repaired cleft palate and 4 without cleft palate) using the Nasometer. The mean nasalance of the entire mid-vowel–nasal consonant–vowel (mid-VNV) sequence (amplitude-domain) and the duration of the nasalized segment of the mid-VNV sequence (temporal-domain) were obtained based on nasalance contours. Results: Strong linear and vowel-dependent relationships were observed between the 2 domains of nasalization (adjusted R2 = 71.5%). Both the amplitude- and temporal-domain measures were found to reliably predict the speaker’s perceived oral-nasal balance, with better overall model fit and higher classification accuracy rates observed in /izinizi/ and /uzunuzu/ than in /azanaza/. Despite poor specificity, the temporal-domain measure of /azanaza/ was found to have a strong correlation with the participants’ Zoo passage nasalance scores ( rs = .897, p < .01), suggesting its potential utility as a severity indicator of perceived nasality. Conclusions: With the use of relatively simple speech tasks and measurements representing the amplitude and temporal domains of nasalization, the present study provided practical guidelines for using the Nasometer in assessing patients with oral-nasal resonance imbalance. Findings suggest that both domain measures of nasalization should be examined across different vowel contexts, given that each domain may provide clinically relevant, yet different, information.

Perceptual Judgments of Resonance, Nasal Airflow, Understandability, and Acceptability in Speakers with Cleft Palate: Ordinal versus Visual Analogue Scaling

Objective To investigate the reliability of ordinal versus visual analogue scaling (VAS) ratings for perceptual judgments of nasal resonance, nasal airflow, understandability, and acceptability in speakers with cleft palate. Design Within-subjects comparative study. Setting Multisite. Participants Five specialist speech and language therapists from U.K. Regional Cleft Centres. Outcome Measures Participants rated 30 audio speech samples obtained from the Speech and Language Therapy archives of Great Ormond Street Hospital. They rated the identified speech parameters using each scaling method, with 1 month between rating tasks. The model of best fit was determined to examine validity, and both intra- and inter-rater reliability were also computed. Results VAS ratings were valid for all parameters when plotted against ordinal ratings, and the model of best fit revealed only a slightly stronger curvilinear than linear relationship between the scaling methods. Intra-rater reliability was high for both rating methods across all six speech parameters. There was also high inter-rater reliability for both ordinal and VAS ratings of hypernasality, nasal emission, nasal turbulence, understandability, and acceptability, and for the ordinal ratings of hyponasality. Conclusions Perceptual judgments of nasal resonance, nasal airflow, understandability, and acceptability were similar using VAS and ordinal scaling, indicating that both scaling methods were appropriate for measuring the cleft speech parameters. VAS, however, may offer statistical advantages, and there is a growing body of evidence advocating its use for the measurement of prothetic speech parameters.