Document Type : Original Articles

Authors

• Neda Tahmasebifard ¹
• Bijan Shafie ²
• Mehrdad Memarzadeh ³
• Negin Moradi ⁴
• Parisa Rezaei ²
• Majid Soltani ⁵
• Akbar Hassanzadeh ⁶

¹ MSc in Speech Therapy, Department of speech Therapy, School of Rehabilitation Sciences, Isfahan University of Medical Sciences, Isfahan, Iran

² Lecture, Department of Speech Therapy, School of Rehabilitation Sciences, Isfahan University of Medical Sciences, Isfahan, Iran

³ Associate Professor, Department of Children, School of Medicine, Isfahan University of Medical Sciences, Isfahan, Iran

⁴ Lecture, Department of Speech Therapy, School of Rehabilitation Sciences, Ahvaz University of Medical Sciences, Ahvaz, Iran

⁵ Lecture, Department of speech Therapy, School of Rehabilitation Sciences, Ahvaz University of Medical Sciences, Ahvaz, Iran

⁶ Lecture, Department of Statistics, School of Health, Isfahan University of Medical Sciences, Isfahan, Iran

Abstract

Introduction: Hypernasality refers to the perception of abnormal nasal resonance during the production of oral sounds. Perceptual judgment has been regarded to as the gold standard for rating hypernasality but it has been associated with poor reliability. Recently, there has been a significant interest in developing acoustic measures to augment perceptual judgment.The aim of this study was to apply one-third-octave analysis to the evaluation of hypernasality in children with cleft palate/lip during vowel production and to compare the results with those obtained from their normal peers. Materials and Methods: This descriptive-analytic cross-sectional study was conducted on 10 cleft palate children with or without cleft lip who suffered from moderate to severe levels of hypernasality (7 males, 3 females; mean age 8.01 ± 2.7) and 20 normal controls (14 males, 6 females; mean age 8.17 ± 2.2). The speech material was the vowel /i/ produced by each speaker. The obtained samples were then acoustically analyzed using Praat software and the results were analyzed through independent t test using SPSS package version 16. Results: The results showed that the speakers with moderate to severe hypernasality had significantly higher energy levels for the one-third-octave bands centered at 630, 800, 1000, and 1600 Hz than those with normal resonance. Conclusion: This study showed that one-third-octave analysis is an appropriate tool for quantifying perceived severity of hypernasality due to cleft palate with or without cleft lip. Keywords: Acoustic analysis, 1/3 octave spectrum, Hypernasality, Cleft palate