No abstract

In recent years, the use of cepstral measures for acoustic evaluation of voice has increased. The objective of this study is to evaluate the diagnostic value of spectral/ cepstral measures to differentiate dysphonia from normal voice and to determine what type of voice sample (sustained vowel /a/ or connected speech) is the most sensitive in differentiating normal and pathological voice. Methods: Two hundred and eighty-eight individuals (99 men, 189 women) from 214 dysphonia patients and 74 normal speakers recorded connected speech and a sustained vowel /a/. One laryngologist and two speechlanguage pathologists performed visual and auditory-perceptual rating of voice samples in terms of the degree of dysphonia/normality. Recorded voices were analyzed with two spectral/cepstral measures. The cutoff value for positivity that has the highest specificity for discriminating between normal and dysphonia voices was determined based on receiver operating characteristic (ROC) analyses. Results: Measures of cepstral peak prominence (CPP) and ratio of low-to high-frequency spectral energies (L/H ratio) were significantly different between groups in both speech conditions. ROC analysis demonstrated CPP had high sensitivity and specificity for the classification of dysphonia versus controls in the both speech conditions (area under curve [AUC] = .815 in vowel, AUC = .91 in connected speech); and CPP, in particular, showed higher discrimination accuracy. Conclusion: CPP is a good predictable acoustic measure to detect dysphonic speakers in both vowel prolongation and connected speech from normal voice. Therefore, this study suggested cepstralbased acoustic measures should be included for clinical evaluation of dysphonia.

The purpose of this study was to explore the effects of speech tasks (vowel vs. continuous speech) and gender on cepstral and spectral measurement. Methods: Fifty-one young adults with normal voice participated and four cepstral-and spectral parameters [cepstral peak prominence (CPP), CPPSD, L/H ratio, L/H ratio SD] were obtained using ADSV TM on seven Korean vowels (

Objectives: There are multidisciplinary and collaborative approaches for management of benign vocal fold lesions. Laryngeal microsurgery is one of the management procedures for treatment of dysphonia with medication and voice therapy. Laryngeal microsurgery, in particular, has been implemented when there is no vocal improvement after medication or voice therapy. However, voice problems often persist following surgery. The aim of this study was to investigate the effect of voice therapy in the treatment of postoperative functional dysphonia. Methods: Indirect and direct voice therapy consisting of laryngeal massage and semi-occluded vocal tract exercises (SOVTE) were performed on 14 female patients with dysphonia. Auditory-perceptual, acoustic analysis and the Korean version of Voice Handicap Index-10 (K-VHI-10) were compared before and after voice therapy. Results: In acoustic analysis, standard deviation of F0 (STD), Jitter, pitch perturbation quotient (PPQ), fundamental frequency variation (vF0), Shimmer, amplitude perturbation quotient (APQ), peak to peak amplitude variation (vAm), noise-to-harmonic ratio (NHR), degree of sub-harmonic (DSH) were significantly lower after voice therapy. Significantly lower levels of 'grade' , 'breathiness' , and 'strain' in GRBAS were revealed following voice therapy. In addition, K-VHI-10 was also significantly reduced after voice therapy. Conclusion: SOVTE and laryngeal massage were effective for patients with persists dysphonia by modifying or eliminating inappropriate vocal patterns that lead to voice dysfunction. Therefore, voice therapy following laryngeal surgery can be useful to recover vocal fold functions that cannot be solved by voice rest or vocal hygiene alone.

The aim of this study was to demonstrate the test-retest reliability of sentence recognition score (SRS) using Korean standard sentence lists for adults (KS-SL-A). Subjects consisted of 156 adults aged between 18 and 25 years with normal hearing sensitivity. Eight lists of KS-SL-A were presented to each subject using a compact disc. SRS was calculated by the percentage of correct responses of 40 target words within 10 sentences. After one or two weeks, retest was performed and correlation, paired t-test, 95% confidence interval (CI) and prediction interval (PI) were calculated for the test-retest reliability. Results showed that the correlation coefficient of SRS was 0.72 and the difference between test and retest SRSs was not statistically significant (paired t-test, p > .05). Results also demonstrated narrow 95% CI and relatively wide 95% PIs. These results indicate that SRS test using the recorded voice of KS-SL-A is fairly reliable. Therefore, 95% PIs for each SRS rather than the PI for the whole range of SRS are strongly recommended in clinical situations when evaluating each individual's retest SRS.