• Phonetics and Speech Sciences
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• v.10 no.3
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• pp.49-59
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• 2018

The purpose of this study was to investigate vocal hygiene habits and Korean Voice-Related Quality of Life (K-VRQOL) among classical singers. A total of 128 classical singers filled an online voice and K-VRQOL questionnaire, and the results were analyzed. In order to investigate the characteristics of K-VRQOL according to age groups, and the presence or absence of a history of voice problems, we conducted a two-way ANOVA. The results are as follows. Of the 128 classical singers, 28 (21.9%) with a history of voice problems said that excessive conversation, singing practice, and yelling were the causes of their voice problems. The symptoms of voice problems were fatigue, loss of range, hoarseness, and breathiness. In addition, classical singers were less likely to smoke, or to drink alcohol or caffeine. The K-VRQOL was highly correlated with all sub-domains. There was a statistically significant difference according to age groups (p<.05) and history of voice problems (p<.01). There was no correlation between age groups and history of voice problems. Voice management is important because classical singers can ruin their voice by speaking, and the risk of voice disorder is high. Voice problems affect quality of life. In future studies, it is necessary to obtain information on the subjective voice characteristics of classical singers by examining the relationship between their voice hygiene habits and VHI, SVHI, and K-VRQOL.

• Phonetics and Speech Sciences
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• v.5 no.4
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• pp.33-41
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• 2013

This study investigated the perceptual and cepstral/spectral characteristics of phonation and their relationships in dysarthria in connected speech. Twenty-two participants were divided into two groups; the eleven dysarthric speakers were paired with matching age and gender healthy control participants. A perceptual evaluation was performed by three speech pathologists using the GRBAS scale to measure the cepstrual/spectral characteristics of phonation between the two groups' connected speech. Correlations showed dysarthric speakers scored significantly worse (with a higher rating) with severities in G (overall dysphonia grade), B (breathiness), and S (strain), while the smoothed prominence of the cepstral peak (CPPs) was significantly lower. The CPPs were significantly correlated with the perceptual ratings, including G, B, and S. The utility of CPPs is supported by its high relationship with perceptually rated dysphonia severity in dysarthric speakers. The receiver operating characteristic (ROC) analysis showed that the threshold of 5.08 dB for the CPPs achieved a good classification for dysarthria, with 63.6% sensitivity and the perfect specificity (100%). Those results indicate the CPPs reliably distinguished between healthy controls and dysarthric speakers. However, the CPP frequency (CPP F0) and low-high spectral ratio (L/H ratio) were not significantly different between the two groups.

• Journal of the Korean Society of Laryngology, Phoniatrics and Logopedics
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• v.17 no.2
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• pp.146-148
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• 2006

Spasmodic dysphonia is a voice disorder characterized by involuntary voice breaks during speech. Adductor spasmodic dysphonia is most common and characterized by strained and strangled voice breaks. The current standard of treatment of therapy for adductor spasmodic dysphonia is chemodenervation of thyroarytenoid muscle with botulinum toxin(Botox). However, Botox is a temporary treatment with each injection lasting approximately 3 months on average and require repeated injections. In this study, we report our experience with surgical treatment for adductor spasmodic dysphonia. In this procedure, the thyroarytenoid branch and lateral cricoarytenoid branch of recurrent laryngeal nerve is selectively denervated unilaterally, and its distal nerve stump of thyroarytenoid branch is reinnervated with branch of the usa cervicalis nerve. And lateral cricoarytenoid muscle partial myotomy was done unilaterally. After 6 months of treatment, voice fluency had improved and no period of breathiness or dysphagia was noted.

• Phonetics and Speech Sciences
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• v.9 no.4
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• pp.129-136
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• 2017

This study investigates the effect of voice quality on speech intelligibility and the relationship between voice quality and intelligibility for children with spastic CP. We recruited 36 children with spastic CP (mean age 10.43 year, 17 girls, 19 boys, spastic type 34, mixed 2) from a special school and a rehabilitation hospital. Voice samples for the perceptual analysis of voice quality were extracted from a sustained vowel /a/ and were rated on the GRBAS scales by two experienced speech language pathologists. Ten adult subjects with no hearing problems evaluated speech intelligibility for the 37 words listed in the Assessment of Phonology and Articulation for Children on a 7-point interval scale. The children with spastic CP were divided into three groups according to the rated G scores on the GRBAS scales (G1(n)=10, G2(n)=13, G3(n)=13). Analyses of ANCOVA and Pearson correlation showed that there was a significant difference in speech intelligibility among three groups. There was also a significant correlation in G scale (grade), A scale (asthenia), B scale (breathy) score, and speech intelligibility. These findings suggest that poor speech intelligibility of spastic CP might be related to asthenia and breathiness. Vocal intensity should be increased and vocal functioning should be improved for speech therapy to improve speech intelligibility of the children with spastic CP.

• Speech Sciences
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• v.11 no.2
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• pp.165-177
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• 2004

Western singers voice have been studied in music science since the early 20th century. However, Korean traditional singers voice have not yet been studied scientifically. This study is to find the physiological and acoustic characteristics of Pansori singers voices. Western singers participated for comparative purposes. Ten western singers and ten Pansori singers participated in this study. The subjects spoke and sung seven simple vowels /a, e, i, o, u, c, w/. An analysis of Glottal image was done by Scope View and acoustic characteristics of speech and singing voice were analyzed by CSL. The results are as follows: (1) Glottal gestures of Pansori singers showed asymmetric vocal folds. (2) Singing vowel formants of Pansori singers showed breathiness based on Spectrogram. (3) Music formant of western singers appeared in around 3kHz area, however, Pansori singers formant appeared in low frequency area. Modulation of vibrato showed 6 frequency per sec in case of western singers. Pansori singers showed no deep modulation of vibrato on spectrogram.

• Journal of the Korean Society of Laryngology, Phoniatrics and Logopedics
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• v.10 no.2
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• pp.154-163
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• 1999

GRBAS scale, the tool fir the perceptual evaluation of voice, demands the experience of judges, and MDVP parameters of CSL, the tool for the objective measurements of voice quality demands the exact interpretation of the analyzed results. The two tools should be used as compensatory evaluation methods, so the experimental study was performed to investigate the correlation between GRBAS scales and MDVP parameters by using the pathologic voice of the 30 patients with vocal polyps, and to know the significant MDVP parameters which the inexperienced GRBAS scale judges should attend to. The 30 subjects voices, saved in MDVP of CSL were analyzed by its own analysis program, and three experienced voice therapists judged the same voices by using GRBAS scales. The correlations between them were analyzed by Spearman Rank Correlation Coefficient. As results, among the 29 MDVP parameters, 22 parameters showed statistically significant correlation with Grade(G) scale(p＜0.05). And it was found that Roughness(R) scale showed significant correlation with 18 parameters, Breathiness(B) scale with 17 parameters, Strain(S) scale with 12 parameters. In Asthenicity(A) scale, no parameter showed significant correlation. On the whole, significantly high correlation were found in the parameters related with pitch ind amplitude perturbation, especially, the amplitude perturbation.

• Phonetics and Speech Sciences
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• v.7 no.3
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• pp.183-191
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• 2015

This study evaluated the effect of the therapeutic methods between vocal function exercise(VFE), which has been used for the patients with presbyphonia in the precedent studies and laryngeal calibration technique($SKLCT^{(R)}$), which is designed by the author. We identified 58 patients who was been diagnosed as presbylaryngis by laryngoscopic examinations. 21 patients were underwent voice therapy using $SKLCT^{(R)}$, 20 patients were taken VFE, and the control group of 17 patients were not taken any voice therapy. All subjects received the therapy, ranging from seven to nine sessions, and were evaluated the voice change on pretherapy and posttherapy. The grade of hoarseness, roughness, and breathiness voice were reduced on perceptual judgments after $SKLCT^{(R)}$, but only grade of hoarseness was reduced after the VFE. Jitter, Shimmer, NHR were reduced and MPT were increased after the $SKLCT^{(R)}$(p<.05), while Jitter and SFF were reduced after the VFE. Frequency and intensity range were increased significantly on the posttest performance after taking voice therapy by the $SKLCT^{(R)}$, on the other hand only intensity range was increased after VFE. Especially, we can find the significant change that glottic gap and supraglottic compressions was reduced in most of patients after the $SKLCT^{(R)}$, but there's no changes in the group of VFE and control group. In the study, we can suggest that the $SKLCT^{(R)}$ may be useful in improving the voice qualities and laryngeal function of presbyphonia.

• Journal of the Korean Society of Laryngology, Phoniatrics and Logopedics
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• v.30 no.1
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• pp.48-52
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• 2019

Background and Objectives : Functional aphonia is characterized by incomplete closure of the vocal folds. Semi-occluded vocal tract exercise (SOVTE) allows smoothly vocal folds collision without damage to the vocal folds tissues to produce normal vocal intensity. The purpose of this study is to report the effect of SOVTE in patients with functional aphonia. Materials and Method : Seven patients diagnosed with functional aphonia were treated with 1-3 voice therapy sessions using voiced lip-trill, humming, Lax Vox in SOVTE. To assess the effectiveness of semi-occluded vocal tract exercise, cepstral analysis and auditory perceptual assessment were performed before and after voice therapy. Results : F0 (fundamental frequency), CPP (cepstral peak prominence) and L/H ratio (low/high spectral ratio) were significantly increased, while CPP Standard deviation, L/H ratio Standard deviation were decreased. In addition, 'Grade', 'Breathiness' and 'Asthenia' were significantly decreased in the GRBAS scale after SOVTE (p<0.05). Conclusion : In our study, SOVTE seemed to be effective to elicit voice quickly and promote vocal folds vibration without muscular effort in patients with functional aphonia.

• Phonetics and Speech Sciences
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• v.16 no.1
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• pp.17-24
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• 2024

The Korean three-way stop contrast (lenis, aspirated, fortis) is currently undergoing a sound change, such that the primary cue distinguishing lenis and aspirated stops is shifting from voice onset time (VOT) to F0. Despite recent discussions of this shift, research on voice quality, traditionally considered an additional cue signaling the contrast, remains sparse. This study investigated the extent to which the associated voice quality [as reflected in the acoustic measurements of H1^*-H2^*, H1^*- A1^*, and cepstral peak prominence (CPP)] contributes to the three-way stop contrast, and how the realization is conditioned by prominence- vs. boundary-induced prosodic strengthening amid the ongoing sound change. Results for 12 native Korean speakers indicate that there was a substantial distinction in voice quality among the three stop categories with the breathiness of the vowel being the greatest after the lenis, intermediate after the aspirated, and least after the fortis stops, indicating the role of voice quality in the maintenance of the three-way stop contrast. Furthermore, prosodic strengthening has different effects on the contrast and contributes to the enhancement of the phonological contrast contingent on whether it is induced by prominence or boundary.

• Journal of the Korean Society of Laryngology, Phoniatrics and Logopedics
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• v.12 no.1
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• pp.11-16
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• 2001

Background and Objectives : A burn injury to the glottis differs from a burn injury to the trachea, bronchi, and lung parenchyma, in that thermal injury does not occur to any significant degree below the level of the larynx, due to the effective cooling of air by the upper airway and to reflex closure of the vocal cords from a blast of hot air. Therefore, the laryngeal inhalation injury give rise to airway problem and voice change. The objectives of this study is to assess management of laryngeal inhalation injury and voice change after management. Materials and Methods : Voice choses and laryngeal injuries of eight laryngeal inhalation patients were analyzed through questionnaire, voice dynamic laboratory, and laryngeal stroboscopy. Operative management was performed to five patients for airway patiency and vocal cord movement on laryngeal pathology ind voice therapy was performed to all patients. One-year after, voice changes and laryngeal injuries were reanalyzed with same methods. Results : Vocal breathiness, decreased voice intensity, reduced voice range, and easy fatigability were major complaints of laryngeal inhalation patients. Glottic stenosis were developed to five of eight patients, and vocal cord atrophy, bowing were developed to others. Vocal cord mucosal waves were significantly decreased in all patients. Jitter(%), Shimmer(dB) were increased and Maximal phonation time(MPT) was decreased. One-year after, subjective voice changes and objective voice parameters were improved. And vocal cord mucosal waves were recovered in all patients. Conclusions : Subjective voice quality and objective voice parameters were improved after operative management for laryngeal pathology and voice therapy. And we observed recovery of vocal fold mucosal waves by laryngeal stroboscopy. We think that early preventable tracheotomy is necessary to reduce the laryngeal contact injury in laryngeal inhalation patients.