Effects of Vibratory Source on Auditory-Perceptual and Bio-Inspired Computational Measures of Pediatric Voice Quality.
Yeonggwang Park, Susan Baker Brehm, Lisa Kelchner and 6 others
PMID 37739862WHAT IT FOUND
Children using supraglottic structures for voice production had significantly rougher and more strained voices than those using true vocal folds, but breathiness did not differ.
Roughness is the key marker for this group, not breathiness.
Key findings
01Children with supraglottic and mixed vibratory sources had significantly higher perceived roughness and strain than children with glottal vibratory sources, but breathiness did not differ between groups.
02Bio-inspired computational measures of amplitude modulation correlated strongly with perceived roughness, offering an objective assessment tool for severely aperiodic pediatric voices where standard acoustic measures fail.
03The single-variable matching task showed good reliability for breathiness and roughness but only moderate reliability for strain, likely due to strain co-varying with other voice qualities.
STILL TO COME
How it was doneWhat they foundWhat it means for SLPs
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What it does not show
Only sustained vowels were used, lacking ecological validity for connected speech where these measures are not yet validated. Seven listeners is a small sample for perceptual tasks, though reliability was checked against previous norms. The range of perceived strain in the samples was narrower than in adult datasets, which may have weakened the correlation between strain and sharpness. Strain judgments had only moderate inter-rater reliability, possibly because strain co-varies with roughness and breathiness in the samples. The study is a laboratory evaluation of measurement tools, not a clinical trial of treatment efficacy.
Declared interests
None declared.
The easy way to misread this
Do not assume that a lack of perceived breathiness indicates healthy vocal fold closure in children with supraglottic vibratory sources. These children often achieve adequate closure through excessive vocal effort, resulting in high strain and roughness rather than the breathiness typically seen in glottal insufficiency.
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