The Relationship between Pharyngeal Wall Movements and Exchangeable Speech Appliance Sections

Abstract

Reduction in size of the pharyngeal section1 of prosthetic speech ap— pliances has been thought to result in the development of pharyngeal wall movements during speech (I, 2). However, our cinefluorographic comparisons of posterior pharyngeal wall movements before and after pharyn-geal section reduction did not show increase in movements (8). This did not disprove the section reduction hypothesis but rather indicated that the conditions under which section reduction will influence wall movements are limited. Those conditions remain to be identified. 'We have reviewed and discussed literature pertaining to this topic elsewhere (8). The current study describes a new procedure for manipulating pharyn— geal sections and reports data obtained from three subjects under several pharyngeal section conditions. The study procedure permitted repeated observations of a subject under each of the conditions used. The dependent variable measures included articulation test scores, oral sound pressure level (SPL) and nasal sound level (SL), nasal air pressure, and cinefluorography of the posterior pharyngeal wall.