Analysis of Speech Fundamental Frequencies for Different Tasks in Japanese.

Purpose: Speech fundamental frequency (SFF) assessment is essential for all dysphonia patients to effectively evaluate the therapeutic effects of voice therapy, especially in patients with disturbances in their voice pitch due to mutational dysphonia, Reinke's edema, or as side effects of hormone therapy. A standard method of SFF measurement remains unknown. Speech tasks such as sustained vowel phonation, counting, reading passage, and spontaneous speech have generally been used for SFF measurements.

[Characteristics of childhood stuttering and suggestions for clinical practice].

Disfluency in an early phase of infancy should be addressed in the light of differences between stuttering and normal disfluency. When a direct approach is applied to an child who has become aware of his/her stuttering, it is importance to first make the child confront his/her stuttering and try to change it, and then to create a calm atmosphere receptive to any stuttering. Stuttering complicated by developmental disorders is characterized by the absence of variation characteristic of the symptoms of disfluency, or less variability.