BACKGROUND Hypernasality is a frequently encountered problem in the speech of individuals with velopharyngeal incompetence. The use of palatal lift appliance (PLA) is the main treatment option for correction of velopharyngeal incompetence. The literature on the outcomes of using prosthetics treatment for Arabic speaking patients is scarce. OBJECTIVE The aim of this study was to investigate th...

Hypernasality is a frequently occurring resonance disorder in children with cleft palate. In general, an operation is necessary to reduce the hypernasality and therefore an assessment of hypernasality is imperative to quantify the effect of the surgery and design the speech therapy sessions, which are crucial after surgery. In this paper, a new quantitative method is proposed to estimate hypern...

Formerly, we had reported that rating hypernasality of speech in cleft palate patients is affected by the presence of hoarseness, especially “rough hoarseness”. In the present study, we further investigated the effects of “breathy hoarseness”, something frequently observed in cleft palate children, on the rating of hypernasality. We also controlled the degree of breathiness by adding harmonic c...

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 evalua...

PURPOSE To investigate the correlation among velopharyngeal closure, hypernasality, audible nasal air emission (NAE) and nasal rustle (NR), in individuals with repaired cleft palate. METHODS One hundred patients with repaired cleft palate and lip, submitted to pressure-flow study for measurement of velopharyngeal orifice area (velopharyngeal area) and speech sample recordings. Velopharyngeal ...

BACKGROUND Although increased nasality can originate from basal ganglia dysfunction, data regarding hypernasality in Parkinson's disease (PD) and Huntington's disease (HD) are very sparse. The aim of the current study was to analyze acoustic and perceptual correlates of velopharyngeal seal closure in 37 PD and 37 HD participants in comparison to 37 healthy control speakers. METHODS Acoustical...

OBJECTIVE Our purpose was to determine how anatomical conditions of the throat influence the degree and duration of posttonsillectomy transient hypernasality. PATIENTS AND METHODS A total of 82 tonsillectomies were performed. The participants were divided into groups: 1 – small tonsils, high soft palate position; 4 – large tonsils, low soft palate position, and 2 and 3 – intermediate tonsil d...

PURPOSE To investigate the effect of perceptual inter-judge agreement of hypernasality on velopharyngeal (VP) closure prediction. METHODS Two logistic regression models were developed aiming to verify the possibility of predicting the VP closure using the following characteristics: rating of VP closure (adequate, borderline, inadequate), determined by the pressure-flow technique, degree of hy...

hypernasality is a frequently occurring resonance disorder in children with cleft palate. generally an operation is necessary to reduce the hypernasality and therefore an assessment of hypernasality is imperative to quantify the effect of the surgery and design the speech therapy sessions which are crucial after surgery. in this paper, a new quantitative method is proposed to estimate hypernasa...

Speakers with a defective velopharyngeal mechanism produce speech with inappropriate nasal resonance. It is of clinical interest to detect hypernasality as it is indicative of an anatomical, neurological, or peripheral nervous system problem. While clinical techniques exist for detecting hypernasality, a preferred approach would be noninvasive to maximize patient comfort and naturalness of spea...