• Speech Sciences
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• v.9 no.3
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• pp.133-140
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• 2002

The purpose of this study was to investigate any changes in acoustic qualities of voice as ,a function of nasalance, in order to determine the relationship between vocal quality and nasalance. Twenty normal subjects (10 males and 10 females) vocalized /a/, /$\tilde{a}$/, and /a $\eta$/. The changes in nasalance and acoustic characteristics of the voice were analyzed by Nasometer (Model 6200-3, Kay Elemetrics, co) and Dr, Speech 4.0 (Tiger Electronics, Co), respectively. One-way ANOVA was used to examine any changes in jitter, shimmer, harmonics-to-noise ratio, and normalized noise energy relative to the nasalance in 3 types of vocalization. The Person r correlation coefficient was used to identify the relationship between the nasalance and the vocal quality. There was no statistically significant changes in jitter, shimmer, HNR and NNE. The jitter, however, tended to increase as the nasalance socre increased, compared to the other vocal parameters. In addition, the NNE showed an increase on / $\tilde{a}$/, and /a $\eta$/, more on the /a $\eta$/. Thus, it was speculated that NNE could be used to identify or screen resonant disorders with hypernasality

• Journal of the Korean Society of Laryngology, Phoniatrics and Logopedics
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• v.22 no.2
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• pp.115-118
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• 2011

Background and Objectives : The voice change occurs after tonsillectomy and adenoidectomy. This study was designed to examine the postoperative nasalance changes using Nasometer. Materials and Method : From April 2009 to February 2010, data of twenty-eight patients who underwent tonsillectomy, tonsillectomy & adenoidectomy were evaluated. 12 males and 16 females were chosen. Nasalance test was performed before, after 1 week, after 1 month from the surgery. Results : Postoperative mean nasalance results statistically significant increased in 1 weeks after surgery, and returned to the preoperative state in 1 month after surgery. Conclusion : Although the nasalance increased immediately after tonsillectomy and adenoidectomy temporally, it was recovered 1 month after surgery. Therefore, the voice change that come postoperatively could be considered as no concern, and surgeons need to aware of various facts, which can affect voice changes before the surgery.

• Journal of the Korean Society of Laryngology, Phoniatrics and Logopedics
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• v.21 no.2
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• pp.128-132
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• 2010

Background and Objectives : This study was designed to examine the effect of nasal cavity surgery on voice in terms of nasalance by using subjective test, Visual analogue scale (VAS) and Nasometer and compare the pre op and post op results among patiets with nasal cavity disease. Materials and Method : From April 2009 to November 2009, data of thirty one patients who underwent nasal cavity surgery were prospectively evaluated. 24 males and 7 females with age range between 12 years to 80 years old (average 34 years old) were chosen. VAS was questioned to patients group before, after 1 week, after 1 month, and after 3 months from the surgery. Nasometer, was also conducted. Results: After the surgery symptoms like nasal obstruction, mouth breath, snoring, and sleep apnea were all improved. Improvements for nasal obstruction and mouth breath were observed statistically in post operative day (POD) 1 month and POD 3 months. Also snoring was improved statistically in POD 1 month. Objective nasalance test showed increases in a single and double vowel for POD 3 months. Only /je/ sound statistically-significant increased in all post operative periods. Nasalance increase were observed in other test results. Conclusion : All the symptoms are improved after nasal cavity surgery. Also there are some nasalance changes during whole period of study and return to the pre operative state in POD 3 months. Therefore, patients must be warned and understood about nasalance changes, and surgeons need to aware of various facts, which can affect voice changes before the surgery.

• Journal of the Korean Society of Laryngology, Phoniatrics and Logopedics
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• v.8 no.2
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• pp.210-216
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• 1997

Many tools have been used to evaluate the voice abnormalities of velopharyngeal insufficiency(VPI). The aim of study was to obtain the objective evaluation method of VPI by comparing the acoustic and nasalance data of experimentally induced VPI group and those of normal control group. Ten healthy young men were included in this study Mild and severe VPI were experimentally induced by retracting velopharyngeal movement. Using the nasometer, we obtained the nasalance score of the sustained oral vowels and those of three types of nasometer passages and the slope scores of nasogram of nasal words. And we analysed the change of formant frequencies for the sustained oral vowels and the changes of various parameters of hyper-tnasality by the computerized speech analysis system. The nasalance score of sustained /a/ was increased significantly in VPI conditions. There was no changes in the slope score of nasogram. On the acoustic speech analysis, the second formant frequencies of vowel /e/ and /i/ were decreased significantly in VPI conditions. This results suggested that the measurement of nasalance score and formant frequency might be useful in the evaluation of VPI.

• Journal of the Korean Society of Laryngology, Phoniatrics and Logopedics
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• v.12 no.1
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• pp.34-38
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• 2001

Background and Objectives : With the development of computerized systems, an objective evaluation methods of nasal speech and nasal geometry have become readily available by means of a simple, noninvasive technique. In this study, we assessed the nasality, nasal formant, nasal volume and nasal area in patients with hypertrophic rhinitis before and after turbinate surgery. Material and Method : With the nasometer, we measured nasalance, which reflects the ratio of acoustic energy output of nasal sounds from the nasal and oral cavities. With CSL 4300B, we measured nasal formants. We used acoustic rhinometer to measure nasal area and nasal volume. Postoperative changes of above factors were compared with preoperative values. Paired t-test and Pearson's correlation were used for statistical analysis. Results : The first nasal formant frequency, nasalance scores of three passages(baby, mamma and rabbit passages), minimal cross sectional area(MCA) of narrow side, nasal volume of narrow side and nasal volume of wide side had increased significantly after turbinate surgery (p <0.05). The MCA and nasal volume of narrow side and MCA of wide side showed significant correlation with nasalance score of rabbit passage and baby passage showed significant correlation with nasal volume of narrow side(p<0.05). Conclusion : There were significant increases in nasalance scores, first nasal formant frequency, MCA and nasal volume after turbinate surgery. Thus, we must consider the possibility of voice changes postoperatively in professional voice users.

• Journal of the Korean Society of Laryngology, Phoniatrics and Logopedics
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• v.9 no.1
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• pp.27-31
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• 1998

Nasal sounds include nasalized vowels and consonants. Nasal cavity is important for the acoustics of nasal sounds. Evaluating the effects of site-specific nasal obstruction on nasal sound will help us to understand the importance of nasal geometry for the nasal sound and to foretell voice change after nasal surgery This study was designed to analyze the change of nasality and formant characteristics of nasal sound by obstructing different sites around the ostiomeatal unit(OMU). Ten adult male and female volunteers participated. The nasal formants and bandwidths of nasal consonant /n/ were checked in various conditions of nasal obstruction. The nasalance of rabbit, baby, and mama passages were compared in each conditions. Nasalance of all passages decreased when anterior portion of OMU was obstructed. Center frequency of first nasal formant(NF1) of /n/ has decreased in the order of anterior, inferior obstruction. The bandwidth of NF1 decreased in female with anterior obstruction. Anterior portion of OMU is most critical to the change of nasality and acoustics of nasal consonant. When anterior portion of OMU is obstructed, the shift of NF1 to a lower frequency and the narrowing of NF1 bandwidth are the major acoustic changes of nasal consonant /n/.

• Journal of the Korean Society of Laryngology, Phoniatrics and Logopedics
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• v.8 no.2
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• pp.161-165
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• 1997

Background : The rhinomanometry and acoustic rhinometry can assess e nasal passage dynamically and statically Recently, analytic methods such as nasometer and sound spectrogram are gaining wide attention to evaluate the nasality objectively. Objectives : firstly to determine if ere was a relationship between the new methods and nasal airway resistance, and secondly to establish if the measurement of nasalance and sound spectrum could be used as an alternative to rhinomanometry and acoustic rhinometry. Materials and Methods : Thirty two patients who underwent either septoplasty and turbinectomy for nasal obstruction were studied. And their ages ranged form 15 to 45 years, with an average of 26.1 years. The rhinomanometry, nasometer, sound spectrogram were performed at preoperative and postoperative 4 weeks day. Results : After operation, subjective symptoms and rhinomanometric results were significantly improved but nasalance and slope of nana, mama and mamma passage had not meningful change. The significnat changes were noted in nasalance and first nasal formant frequency of nasal consonant of velum(angang). Conclusion : Nasometer and sound spectrogram had a limitation for the measure of nasal patency.

• Journal of the Korean Society of Laryngology, Phoniatrics and Logopedics
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• v.9 no.1
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• pp.32-37
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• 1998

Tonsillectomy is the one of operation that is performed the most commonly in otolaryngology field. Many changes that include range of voice, tone, voice quality and resonance were made by tonsillectomy. Sometimes, any patients taken tonsillectomy has suffer from these voice problem after tonsillectomy. However there are less study for these problems until now. Then, we studied to find the anatomical findings that affected the voice quality when tonsillectomy was performed. We evaluated the voice in 2 groups, one is the group showed the normal pharyngeal space by using the transnasal fiberscopy, the other is group showed medially bulging tonsil at pharyngeal cavity by using same method, with perceptual evaluation, nasalance score, nasality, oral formant and nasal formant. We used the computerized speech analysis system, the nasometer and the spectrogram in the CSL program. We could not find any differences in perceptual evaluation between two groups. But objective measures were provided. Nasalance score and nasality on the nasometric analysis were increased significantly and oral formant on the spectrogram was changed singnificantly after tonsillectomy in Group 2. Authors thought medially bulging tonsil in the pharynx is able to affect the voice quality after tonsillectomy when we evaluted through the nasal cavity by the using of fiberscopy and this evaluation would be important especially in singers.

• Journal of the Korean Society of Laryngology, Phoniatrics and Logopedics
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• v.9 no.1
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• pp.22-26
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• 1998

Uvulopalatopharyngoplasty(UPPP) is one of the most popular surgical procedure for the treatment of obstructive sleep apnea syndrome(OSAS) occurring at the level of oropharynx. However, voice changes after UPPP have been a challenging issue for the professional voice users, because even minor changes in voice quality or articulation may be critical to professional singers, teachers, and so on. Several acoustic changes after UPPP have been proposed. However, based on the authors understanding, there is no report about voice changes after UPPP in Korean. We measured the first, second and third formant frequencies of /a/, /i/, /u/ phonations in 20 adult male patients who had undergone UPPP surgery, and the nasalances of Rabbit, Baby, and Mama passages. These parameters were measured preoperatively, at 1 month and 3 months after the operation. Any subjective voice changes were asked to be reported at the posto-perative visits. The third formant(F3) of /u/ phonation was significantly reduced at postoperative 1 month measurement. The nasalance of Mama passage was singnificantly increased at postoperative 3 months measurement. No one complained of subjective changes in voice quality, timbre, articulation or speech. Even though there are no complaints about postoperative voice changes subjectively, significant changes in the formant characteristics of certain vowel and changes in the nasality after UPPP require the clinicians to be mort cautious and careful in deciding UPPP for the professional voice users.

• Journal of the Korean Society of Laryngology, Phoniatrics and Logopedics
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• v.18 no.1
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• pp.39-43
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• 2007

Background and Objectives: There are few studies reported that specifically examine the phonetic characteristics and voice handicap index (VHI) in patients with Allergic Rhinitis. This study was designed to examine phonetic characteristics and VHI in adult patients with allergic rhinitis. Materials and Methods: Forty-two male patients diagnosed as allergic rhinitis were given skin-prick test and others, aged from 20 to 56 years, and were compared with a 16 male control group with no pathology and in the same age group. The VHI was used to measure the changes of patient's perception. Acoustic and aerodynamic analysis test were done, and a nasalance test performed to measure rabbit, baby, and mother passage. Acoustic rhionometry (AR) was performed to evaluate nasal volume and nasal crosssectional area. Statistical analysis was done using independent sample t-test. Results: VHI showed significantly different score in the studied group, higher than that of control group. AR graph showed that there was no significant differences of nasal volume and nasal cross-sectional area. The Shimmer and SFF value in the group of allergic patients were higher than in the control group. MPT value in the group of allergic patients was lower than in the control group. Nasalance in allergic patients showed hypernasality all passage. Conclusion: We suggest that patients with allergic rhinitis have considerable voice problems. Most of them have hypernasality, which may be a compensatory mechanism by nasal obstruction.