Spectral characteristics of hypernasality in maxillectomy patients 1

Abstract

To reveal the acoustic characteristics associated with hypernasality and to ascertain their correlation to the severity of hypernasality, 30 speech samples produced by 15 maxillectomy patients were acoustically analysed with and without an obturator prosthesis in place. The isolated, sustained Japanese vowel /i/ was used as the stimulus for acoustic measurement and perceptual judgment to evaluate the severity of hypernasality. Normalized 1/3-octave spectral analysis demonstrated the spectral characteristics of hypernasality as a rise in amplitude between the first and second formants around the 1 kHz region, and a reduction in amplitude of the frequencies higher than the second formant. High correlation was shown between the perceptual ratings and the predicted values derived from stepwise regression analysis.

Objective Acoustic-Phonetic Speech Analysis in Patients Treated for Oral or Oropharyngeal Cancer

“…Difficulty with production of /k/ originates from velar function difficulties. The decreased size of the vowel triangle of patients was mainly caused by deviant formant values of /i/ and is in accordance with earlier studies [13,14,19] . Inadequate movement of the tongue regarding height (F1) and anterior-posterior movement (F2) may result in distorted vowels.…”

“…In the present study, the vowel /i/ itself also proved to predict subjective evaluations: patients had a higher F1 and a lower F2. These results are in agreement with the results of earlier research on pathological speech [14,19] (both concerned maxillectomy patients), but are not in agreement with results on research concerning partial glossectomy, where it was found that only gender and complication after surgery were of influence on altered F1 values [22] .…”

“…Acoustic-phonetic analysis of the speech signal appeared to differentiate between healthy speakers and glossectomy patients [13] . Acoustic-phonetic analyses also revealed that patients who underwent partial resection of the tongue have deviant formant values for vowels, especially for /i/ [13,14] . A study using a nasometer revealed that speech of patients after reconstruction with large flaps had worse nasal resonance scores [5] .…”

The sound of sarcasm

“…In terms of nasality (i.e., resonance), one-third octave spectral analysis was employed as a means of gauging these differences and their relationship to expressions of sarcasm. This form of analysis, which is performed by applying a onethird octave filter to the important frequencies of a steady state portion of a vowel and measuring the resulting values, is known to correlate well with expert ratings of the presence and degree of clinical hypernasality regardless of etiology, patient age (pediatric or adult) or gender, and across languages (Kataoka et al, 1996(Kataoka et al, , 2001aLee et al, 2003Lee et al, , 2004Yoshida et al, 2000). These additional acoustic measures allow the present literature on sarcasm to be extended in a meaningful way.…”

Rehabilitation of a Hemi-Maxillectomy Patient With a Cast Partial Obturator Prosthesis - A Clinical Report.

“…1 Post-surgical maxillary defects result in difficulty in speech, impaired masticatory function & nasal regurgitation. 2,3,4 The primary goal of rehabilitating these defects include separation of oral & nasal cavities to allow adequate mastication, deglutination, articulation & the soft tissue support to restore acceptable esthetic to improve the quality of life of these individuals. 5 There are many methods for rehabilitate these defects, one of them is obturator prosthesis.…”