Air Flow Rates in Normal Speakers

Abstract

Most authorities agree that speech adequacy is strongly influenced by velopharyngeal competence (.9, 10, 14, 18). Thus, evaluation of surgical techniques and planning for habilitative measures for persons with cleft palates have been related to judgments of velopharyngeal competence. These judgments have relied largely on observation, blowing techniques, and more recently, x-ray study, in addition to subjective appraisal of articulation, voice quality, nasal emission, and intelligi-bility (1, 2,3, 10). Recently, there has been an increasing effort to further objectify evaluative techniques, and refinements of methods for physiologic measurement have received significantly more experimental attention (5, 15). As preliminary research, prior to the study of oral air flow and air pressure patterns in the speech of individuals with cleft palate, the purposes of the present investigation are: a) to report rates of oral and nasal expelled air flow for normal speakers during certain speech activities ; b) to study the variability of expelled air flow among subjects, and the variability associated with certain consonant groups; 0) to compare the expelled air volumes accompanying the production of sounds in syllables with expelled air volumes accompanying sounds in connected speech samples; and d) to evaluate the adequacy of the instrumentation for recording and measurement of oral and nasal air flow during speech. Ten adult males, ten adult females, and ten children, all judged to have normal speaking ability, performed structured speech tasks consisting of vowel-consonant-vowel combinations and short sentences. The oral and nasal air flows were detected by the use of a flowmeter, recorded , along with a synchronizing speech signal, on magnetic tape, and written out on a photographic oscillograph. These records were then marked and measured. Expelled air volume was obtained by integration of the air flow records.