Sound level variation findings for pianissimo and fortissimo phonations in repeated measurements

Ten vocally untrained female university students vocalized /a:/ at five given pitches within the average female speaking range (196, 220, 262, 330, and 396 Hz) as softly as possible (pianissimo) and as loudly as musically acceptable (fortissimo). To study the repeatability of voice range profile (sound level) measurement, the procedure was repeated 10 times in each of the five sample sessions during the day, in connection with vocal loading that included five oral readings (45 min each), 15-min pauses, and a lunch break (45 min). A sound level meter specially designed for voice range profile measurement was used. The effect of the loading was seen on the mean sound level changes and intraindividual variation on SDs. The difference between the first phonation and best performance indicates significance of the repetition of the measurement. The sound level averaged across the pitches rose significantly during loading. The intraindividual SD varied between 3 and 4 dBA according to pitch and loudness, and the sound level difference between the first phonation and best performance was 5 dBA in pianissimo and 7 dBA in fortissimo     

Vocal Range and Intensity in Actors: A Studio Versus Stage Comparison

A voice range profile (VRP) was obtained from each of eight professional actors and compared with two speech range profiles (SRPs). One speech profile was obtained during the dramatic reading of a scene in the laboratory and the other during a performance on stage in a professional theater. The objective was to determine the pitch and loudness ranges used by the actors in speech relative to the VRP. The principal question of interest was whether the actors stayed within the center of the VRP, or whether they tended to drift toward the boundaries of intensity and frequency. A second question was whether the performance within the laboratory accurately reflects that of a stage performance. The results suggest that some subjects tend to exceed the center of the VRP during the stage performance. It is hypothesized that these actors may stress their vocal mechanism during performance and are more likely candidates for vocal injury.     

Normative Voice Range Profiles of Male and Female Professional Voice Users

Normative voice range profiles (VRP) are calculated for a group of male and female teachers, based on 43 and 46 recordings, respectively. All individuals had healthy voices. These normative VRPs contain 95% prediction intervals for both frequency and intensity. They are based on a series of mathematical transformations of the original individual VRPs in order to maintain in the normative VRPs the typical oval VRP shape, including the dip between modal and falsetto register. The normative VRPs presented are directly applicable in the clinical practice of otolaryngologists and speech-language pathologists.     

Voice range in superior laryngealnerve paresis and paralysis

Evaluation of Physiologic Frequency Range (PFR) and Musical FrequencyRange (MRP) of Phonation was performed on 56 adults (singers and nonsingers) presenting with superior laryngeal nerve (SLN) paresis or paralysis confirmed by laryngeal electromyography. The most common etiology was neuritis (69.7%), followed by iatrogenic and unlcnown causes,each accounting for 10.2 % of cases, and finally trauma (8.9%). Both female and male singers with SLN paresis or paralysis had significantly higher PFR and MPR than nonsingers. Female classical singers presented PFR and MPR of up to 10 semitones (ST) higher than nonclassical singers and nonsingers. The lowest PFR and musical ranges were found in patients with SLN paresis associated with recurrent laryngeal nerve paresis or paralysis. The authors suggest that voice range measurement is a useful parameter for analyzing the effects of SLN paresis or paralysis on voice and that it may also assist in measuring outcome following voice therapy.     

Respiratory and glottal efficiency measures in normal classically trained singers

Respiratory and glottal efficiency measures were collected from a pool of 40 classically trained singers with normal larynges. All singers had ?3 years of formal classical voice training and were active professional solo classical singers. Mean flow rates were obtained from all subjects to assess glottal efficiency. Additionally, maximum phonation times and phonation quotients were obtained from a subset of the singers. Pulmonary function test data on forced expiratory volume, forced vital capacity, and forced expiratory flow were obtained for all subjects. Results were compared with published normal values, not specifically derived from trained singers, used commonly in voice laboratoires. Differences were found, suggesting the need for separate normative data to be used for evaluation of the vocal athlete.     

Comparisons of intensity measures and their stability in male and female sneakers

The purpose of the present study was to provide data on the intensitycharacteristics of young adult speakers in terms of conversational intensity level, conversational intensity range, and available intensity range. Subjects included 20 males and 20 females, ages 20–30 years. Each subject was asked to read the Rainbow Passage at a conversational intensity level, as softly as possible without whispering, and as loudly as possible, on 2 separate days 1 week apart. The second and third sentences of the three readings on both days were analyzed for various intensity parameters. Results revealed a conversational intensity level of 70.42 dB for males and 68.15 dB for females. When male and female intensity measures were compared, few statistically significant differences were found. Further, when intensity measures for the first and second readings were compared, few significant differences were found.     

Boot Camp: A Novel Intensive Approach to Voice Therapy

It is well known in the disciplines of neurobiology, exercise physiology, motor learning, and psychotherapy that desirable learning and behavior changes occur primarily from practice that involves high-intensity overload, variability, and specificity of training. We propose a novel treatment approach called intensive short-term voice therapy that uses these practice parameters for recalcitrant dysphonia. Intensive short-term voice therapy involves multiple sessions with a variety of clinicians, incorporating multiple simultaneous therapeutic approaches. The intensive short-term voice therapy approach is characterized by voice therapy for 1–4 successive days each with an average of 5 hours of therapy and five clinicians. This form of intensive voice therapy provides rigorous practice, involving not only overload but also opportunities for specificity and individuality thereby facilitating better transfer of learned skills. This article discusses the conceptual, theoretical, and practical foundations of this novel therapy approach.     

Vocal aging and the impact on daily life: a longitudinal study

Longitudinal studies on vocal aging are scarce, and information on the impact of age-related voice changes on daily life is lacking. This longitudinal study reports on age-related voice changes and the impact on daily life over a time period of 5 years on 11 healthy male speakers, age ranging from 50 to 81 years. All males completed a questionnaire on vocal performance in daily life, and perceptual and acoustical analyses of vocal quality and analyses of maximum performance tasks of vocal function (voice range profile) were performed. Results showed a significant deterioration of the acoustic voice signal as well as increased ratings on vocal roughness judged by experts after the time period of 5 years. An increase of self-reported voice instability and the tendency to avoid social parties supported these findings. Smoking males had a lower speaking fundamental frequency compared with nonsmoking males, and this seemed reversible for males who stop smoking. This study suggests a normal gradual vocal aging process with clear consequences in daily life, which should be taken into consideration in clinical practice as well as in studies concerning communication in social life.     

Repeatability and reproducibility study of thin film optical measurement system

Investigation on surface roughness of thin films is an important issue in manufacturing engineering because the performance of a coated film is significantly affected by the surface roughness of thin films. A fast and flexible optical measurement system to measure surface roughness of hard coatings deposited by cathodic arc evaporation is developed in this work. The objective of this work is to examine the repeatability and reproducibility (R&R) of an optical measurement system. Percentage of equipment variation, appraiser variation and R&R is 7.25%, 1.42% and 7.39%. Thin film optical measurement system developed is acceptable according to the measurement systems analysis and the R&R technique.     

Throaty Voice Quality: Subglottal Pressure, Voice Source, and Formant Characteristics

"Throaty" voice quality has been regarded by voice pedagogues as undesired and even harmful. This study attempts to identify acoustic and physiological correlates of this quality. One male and one female subject read a text habitually and with a throaty voice quality. Oral pressure during p-occlusion was measured as an estimate of subglottal pressure. Long-term average spectrum analysis described the average spectrum characteristics. Sixteen syllables, perceptually evaluated with regard to throaty quality by five experts, were selected for analysis. Formant frequencies and voice source characteristics were measured by means of inverse filtering, and the vocal tract shape of the throaty and normal versions of the vowels [a,u,i,ae] of the male subject were recorded by magnetic resonance imaging. From this material, area functions were derived and their resonance frequencies were determined. The throaty versions of these four vowels all showed a pharynx that was narrower than in the habitually produced versions. To test the relevance of formant frequencies to perceived throaty quality, experts rated degree of throatiness in synthetic vowel samples, in which the measured formant frequency values of the subject were used. The main acoustic correlates of throatiness seemed to be an increase of F1, a decrease of F4, and in front vowels a decrease of F2, which presumably results from a narrowing of the pharynx. In the male subject, voice source parameters suggested a more hyperfunctional voice in throaty samples.     

Twelve-Month Clinical Follow-Up Study of Voice Patients' Recovery Using the Voice Activity and Participation Profile (VAPP)

Objective

To study the effects of voice treatment including brief voice therapy for 12 months in two groups of voice patients: organic and functional.

Design and Methods

A clinical prospective follow-up study with repeated measurements in five phases: medical session, first voice therapy session, last voice therapy session, and 6 months and 12 months after voice therapy. The mean number of voice therapy sessions was 3.4. The main outcome measures were the Voice Activity and Participation Profile (VAPP) and the Symptom Questionnaire.Of consenting patients (n = 141) with chronic voice disorders, 46 dropped out during follow-up. Ninety-five patients formed the study group. Forty-one of them received only voice therapy, but the rest of them received combined treatment (medication, amplifiers, and voice massage), but also experienced life events affecting voice. Patients with any laryngeal pathology formed the organic group (n = 47), others had a functional voice disorder.

Results

Using the improvement criterion that the change of the VAPP score should exceed standard error of measurement, the percentage of individual patients achieving improvement was 47% in the mild, 59% in the moderate, and 75% in the severe disorder groups. Effect size for VAPP total score was 0.89. The positive effect continued to progress after the therapy ended. Patients with functional or organic voice disorder improved almost equally, although minor findings indicate that functional patients benefited more.

Conclusions

Voice treatment had a progressive effect for 1 year in half of our patients. No statistical difference was found between the functional and organic patient groups.     

Impact and Prevention of Voice Problems in the Teaching Profession: Embracing the Consumers'' View

Teachers are vulnerable to developing voice problems due to their specific occupational demands during teaching. Information on how the teaching profession is impacted by voice problems and what the profession perceives to be useful information for preventing voice problems is important for health care service providers. A total of 122 subjects from the teaching profession (55 practicing teachers and 67 prospective teachers) were therefore surveyed to ascertain their perception of their voice condition and the impact of voice problems on their communication, social life, personal emotions, and occupation. The results showed that the practicing teachers perceived their voice to be significantly worse than the prospective teachers. In addition, the teachers also faced significantly more difficulties in their daily communication than the prospective teachers. These two groups of subjects believed that information on breathing exercises and specific vocal hygiene strategies would help them prevent voice problems.     

Laryngeal airway resistance in teacherswith vocal fatigue: A preliminary study

A noninvasive pressure-flow technique was used to compare laryngealairway resistances in nine female classroom teachers with symptoms of vocal fatigue and seven teachers without symptoms of vocal fatigue. Data were collected two times per day on the Monday, Wednesday, and Friday of a typical work-week. No significant between-group differences were found, but two within-group differences were notable. Airflow in the fatigued subjects decreased across the sampling period (p = .0009). In the controls, air pressure increased across the sampling period (p = .021). These findings suggest that both groups may have reacted to vocal demands during the week by employing two different strategies to maintain habitual laryngeal airway resistance: laryngeal adjustments alone or laryngeal adjustments plus increased respiratory drive. The first strategy, employed by the fatigued subjects, may have been less efficient, thereby provoking conditions associated with their vocal fatigue.     

Voice profiles and standard voice profile of untrained children

Voice profiles were taken of 277 healthy children between the ages of 5 and 14 years. The measured phonetograms were grouped according to sex and years of age. In each group, the means and standard deviations of maximal and minimal volume of each frequency were calculated. The median was used to establish the upper and lower limits of the voice range of each group. No age-dependent changes of the group voice profiles were shown in the groups of 7 to 10 year olds. Out of that emerged a standard childhood voice profile of the untrained voice. After age 10, an increase of the dynamic range over the lowest frequencies was found. Because of the voice changes in puberty, a profile for 13- and 14-year-old boys could not be established.