Characteristics of a Dysphonic Population Referred for Voice Assessment and/or Voice Therapy.

OBJECTIVE: The aim of this study was to define patient characteristics of a dysphonic population in terms of voice disorder, gender, age, and subjective and objective vocal parameters and to explore the relevant characteristics of the most frequent groups of voice disorders. PATIENTS AND METHODS: Patient records from 4,447 subjects referred for voice assessment and/or voice therapy were analyzed. RESULTS: Significantly more cases of dysphonia were structural as compared to nonstructural. This significant difference was found in almost all age groups. Significantly more women were diagnosed with dysphonia than men. The most common symptom was light-to-moderate hoarseness. The average voice handicap index was 31 and the average dysphonia severity index was -0.6. Vocal fold nodules (VFN), functional voice disorders (FVD) and vocal fold paralysis (VFP) were the three most frequently diagnosed vocal pathologies and were analyzed in detail. Women were found to be significantly more vulnerable to FVD, VFN and cysts, whereas men were significantly more often diagnosed with carcinoma, hyperkeratosis, laryngitis, papillomatosis, presbyphonia, puberphonia and VFP. CONCLUSIONS: The results of this study allow a better estimation of the clinical needs and costs for a specific dysphonic population looking for help and highlight the gender-related risks of specific voice disorders.

Characteristics of stuttering in Dutch-speaking individuals.

Clinical diagnostic procedures to distinguish stuttering from non-stuttering individuals partially rely on the observation of characteristics of stuttered words or syllables. The purpose of this study was to examine the sensitivity and specificity of such a procedure, and to describe the observed characteristics of stuttered words. Methods involved the recording of the frequency, duration, and physical tension of stuttered words in conversational speech samples (total 43, 100 words) and in an oral reading task (total 43, 100 words). In this manner, 351 native Dutch speaking people, aged 8-53, who stutter were compared to a group of non-stuttering peers (n = 80). Findings suggest that applying a criterion of 3% stuttered words in conversational speech makes it possible to distinguish stuttering from non-stuttering individuals with high sensitivity (.9345) and perfect specificity (1.0000). Frequency, duration, and physical tension accompanying stuttered words are described for the group of stuttering participants, and these characteristics were compared to the group of non-stuttering speakers.

Awareness and reactions of young stuttering children aged 2-7 years old towards their speech disfluency.

UNLABELLED: Awareness has been an important factor in theories of onset and development of stuttering. So far it has been suggested that even young children might be aware of their speech difficulty. The purpose of the present study was to investigate (a) the number of stuttering children aware of their speech difficulty, (b) the description of reported behavioural expression of awareness, (c) the relationship with age-related variables and with stuttering severity. For a total group of 1122 children with mean age of 4 year 7 months (range 2-7 years old), parental-reported unambiguous verbal and non-verbal reactions as a response to stuttering were available. In the present study, awareness is observed for 56.7% of the very young children (i.e., 2 years old) and gradually increases with age up until 89.7% of the children at the age of seven. All considered age-related factors (i.e., chronological age, age at onset and time since onset) and stuttering severity are statistically significantly related to awareness. LEARNING OUTCOMES: Readers will be able to: (1) Describe findings of awareness of speech disfluency of stuttering children based on an overview of literature; (2) Describe methodological aspects of studies on awareness; (3) Know reported data on awareness of speech disfluency in young stuttering children of the present study; (4) Describe the relationship of awareness of speech disfluency with chronological age, age at onset, time since onset, gender and stuttering severity.

Characteristics of stuttering-like disfluencies in Dutch-speaking children.

UNLABELLED: The purpose of this study was to compare the characteristics of stuttering-like disfluencies in a group of native Dutch-speaking children who stutter (n=693), with a group of normally fluent children (n=79). Methods involved the observation of stuttering-like disfluencies in participants' conversational speech samples (total 77,200 words), particularly the frequency, duration and physical tension of instances of stuttering. Findings indicate that stuttering-like disfluencies exhibited by children who stutter are significantly more frequent, longer in duration and involve more physical tension when compared to those of normally fluent children. Furthermore, applying a criterion of 3% stuttering-like disfluencies to distinguish stuttering from normally fluent children resulted in a high degree of sensitivity (0.9452) and specificity (0.9747). Results were taken to suggest that characteristics of stuttering-like disfluencies of Dutch-speaking children are similar to those of English-speaking children and that talker group membership criteria for childhood stuttering can reasonably be extrapolated from the Dutch to the English language and vice versa. EDUCATIONAL OBJECTIVES: The reader will be able to: (1) describe characteristics of stuttering-like disfluencies, (2) define properties such as frequency, duration and physical tension for stuttering children and normally fluent children, and (3) make use of data on sensitivity and specificity of the criterion of 3% stuttering-like disfluencies to distinguish stuttering and normally fluent children.

Effects of age, sex, and disorder on voice range profile characteristics of 230 children.

In this study, the effect of age, sex, and disorder on the vocal performance of 230 children 6 to 11 years of age was investigated by means of the voice range profile (VRP). Ninety-four control children and 136 children with disorders were studied. The VRPs were quantitatively described by frequency and intensity characteristics, as well as by morphological characteristics. Significant differences between healthy children and children with disorders were found. Age has a different effect in girls than in boys regarding vocal performance. Most of the characteristics for the healthy girls change gradually over the period from 6 to 11 years. For the healthy boys, however, two age groups can be identified: one below and one above 8 years of age. It is hypothesized that the androgen dehydroepiandrosterone (DHEA) and its sulfate may play a role in this phenomenon.

Normative voice range profiles of untrained boys and girls.

Normative voice range profiles (VRPs) are calculated for a group of untrained boys and girls between 6 and 11 years based on 35 and 39 recordings, respectively. All individuals had healthy voices. These normative VRPs contain 95% prediction intervals (PI) 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 presented normative VRPs are directly applicable in the clinical practice of otolaryngologists and speech-language pathologists.