Efficacy of the accent method of voice therapy in treatment of vocal fold paralysis

One of the commonly used methods in treatment of unilateral vocal fold paralysis [U.V.F.P.] is the Smith Accent method. Individuals with glottal incompetence due to U.V.F.P. may complain of hreathy voice, decreased loudness and poor pitch control. The efficacy of the Accent method in those patients shows a great debate. This study was conducted on 20 patients with U.V.F.P. They were divided into two groups, group 1 did not receive therapy by the accent method, and group 2 who received therapy by the accent method. All patients were subjected to initial evaluation using the protocol of assessment which was taken as a [pretest data]. Follow-up evaluation was taken as a [post test] data. The values of the two groups were compared together and results were discussed

Dysphasia

The aim of this article was to provide a review study for the problem of dysphasia regarding its glossary etiology, the protocol of assessment and the different approaches of its rehabilitation. The investigated and the control groups were evaluated by the same quasiobjective scheme. There was a strong evidence that the rehabilitation program used in this study led to a significant improvement of the scores in the investigated group in comparison with the control. No significant correlation was detected between the age of the patient, the premorbid educational level and the time post onset of dysphasia. On the other hand, the degree of recovery was more noticeable in less severe forms of dysphasia and in posterior lesions than the anterior lesions

Pattern of personality and level of anxiety in phonasthenia

Phonasthenia as a functional voice disorder, is called vocal fatigue and it means functional weakness of voice. The aim of this study is to investigate the psychological and social characteristics of phonasthenic patients. Forty subjects were included in this study, 20 normal subjects and 20 phonasthenic patients. Evaluation included special battery of investigation for voice cases, together with psychological evaluation using Eysenck Personality Questionare [EPQ] [Eysenck, 1990] and Manifest Anxiety Scale of Taylor [Taylor, 1953]. The results showed that neuroticism was prominant together with mild degree of anxiety among the phonasthenic patients group

Central auditory function in stutterers [continued study]

Stuttering is of unknown etiology uptill this moment. Since audition has a close relation to stutterers, central auditory test battery was performed on twenty five right handed stutterers and carefully matched group of non-stutterers. The battery composed of the following: tonal masking level difference, speech masking level difference, staggered spondaic word, synthetic sentence identification and pitch pattern sequence tests. The results showed no significant difference between stutterers and non stutterers, as regards synthetic sentence identification, tonal and speech masking level difference, pitch pattern sequence tests. While there was significant difference as regards staggered spondaic word test. There was also no significant correlation between the results of central hearing tests and the degree of stuttering as well as the mental abilities of the study group