Journal of Speech Pathology & Therapy
Open Access

Abstract

A voice disorder can bring about deep implications to social life, both in children and in adults. Voice disorders in children are relatively frequent, affecting 6 to 23% of the children population (Nicollas, Triglia 2008).The etiological factors associated with childhood dysphonia require early and precise assessments. In order for these assessments to be reliable it is necessary to establish well defined normality standards among the genders and different age ranges. This study aims to assess acoustic voice parameters of normally developing male and female children aged between 4 and 12 years in order to provide a representative normative database. The range of etiological factors associated with child dysphonia requires precise diagnosis. Because of the differences in anatomy between adults and children, normative data for the adult population should not be used as evaluative standards for the pediatric population (Sapienza, Ruddy and Baker, 2004). Participants will be instructed to make a deep inhalation before sustaining the phonation of the vowel and then will be instructed to sustain phonation of /a/, /i/, /u/ for 5 seconds, keeping a constant pitch and at a loudness level which would be comfortable for him/her. Two trials will be taken and phonation on the second trial will be recorded using Sony digital recorder. The wave files will be transferred to Visipitch- IV as per the instructions in the manual. Thus preventing recording characteristics which influence acoustic parameters. The aforementioned acoustic parameters will be analysed. Results will be discussed in terms of gender and age differences.

Biography

Email: pranh91@gmail.com