Evaluation of expiratory effort on dysphonic patients on increasing vocal intensity.

It is conceivable that the subjects who have phonatory disorders, in comparison with normal individuals, exert a greater expiratory effort when phonating loudly. Furthermore, we presume that the extent and pattern of the changes in the expiratory effort for increasing vocal intensity may vary according to the types of laryngeal lesions. To prove these hypotheses, we investigated the changes in expiratory effort for increments of the vocal intensity by measuring the expiratory lung pressure.

[Otitis media with effusion in patients with cleft palate and congenital velopharyngeal insufficiency].

The incidences of otitis media with effusion (OME), otoscopic findings of the ear drum, hearing acuity and tympanometric findings were evaluated in 56 cases of cleft palate (CP), 33 cases of submucous cleft palate (SMCP) and 25 cases of congenital velopharyngeal insufficiency without cleft (CVPI). In all the cases, the incidences of OME, the pathological findings in otoscopy and the hearing test were far poorer in the group 8 years old and up than in the younger group. In the younger age group, the incidence of OME was 69% among the CP group, 62% in the SMCP group and showed significantly less incidence in the CVPI group (28%).

Velar Movements during speech in two Wernicke aphasic patients.

The articulatory gestures of the velum in two Wernicke aphasic patients were examined to compare their performances with those of an apraxic patient by means of the fiberoptic technique. In contrast to the marked variability in the apraxic performance in terms of velum height and segmental duration, the two fluent aphasic subjects showed a relatively high degree of consistency in velar movements throughout several repetitions of nonsense syllables and meaningful words. In addition, both patients exhibited a normal pattern of anticipatory coarticulation.

Interaction between articulatory movements and vocal pitch control in Japanese word accent.

In order to investigate the interaction between articulatory and vocal pitch controls, EMGs of the cricothyroid (CT) and sternohyoid (SH) muscles were recorded during utterances of two-mora Japanese words with rising and falling accent types in the Tokyo dialects. The test words consisted of combinations of open and closed vowels. It was revealed that the changes in CT activity were consistently observed in correspondence with the F0 shift according to the accent types, while the SH muscle was observed to be active both for jaw opening and F0 lowering, with some subject-to-subject difference.

Analysis of abnormal articulatory dynamics in two dysarthric patients.

By means of pellet tracking techniques using an X-ray microbeam system, observations of the articulatory movements of various types of dysarthric subjects were conducted. In selected cases, electromyography (EMG) was also performed. The data were specifically examined for range, velocity, and consistency (reproducibility) of the movements of the articulators, as well as the pattern of coordination of the different articulators involved.