Applicability of the Thai nasality test.

ABSTRACT

The aim of this study was to investigate the applicability of a speech stimuli, the Thai Nasality Test, to identify the presence of hypernasality and hyponasality speech. The Thai Nasality Test was evaluated by a comparison study between the perceptual assessment rated by the investigators and the acoustic assessment by using a Nasometer. The study was conducted to 69 normal speakers, 36 dysarthric speakers, and 32 clients with cleft palate. The perceptual assessment was preceded acoustic assessment. Each subject was asked to read or repeat the Thai Nasality Test. Results indicate the reliability and validity of the Thai Nasality Test by a) a positive correlation between perceptual assessment and the instrumental assessment, b) a significant correlation between age and the Tuk Tuk passage and significant correlations between gender and the Manee as well as the Sai Yok water fall passages of the normal group, and c) the discriminating power between disordered speech from normal speech. This study indicated the Thai Nasality Test as a perfect speech stimuli to elicit speech sample for acoustic assessment, particularly the TukTuk and the Sai Yok water fall passages in assessing for hypernasality problems. While an applicability of nasal sentences the Manee to detect the hyponasality could not be confirmed definitely because there was no significant difference among studied groups.