Karnell Michael P, Moon Jerald B, Nakajima Kengo, Kacmarynski Deborah S
J Speech Lang Hear Res. 2016 Aug 1;59(4):722-31. doi: 10.1044/2016_JSLHR-S-15-0268.
The purpose of this research was to learn the extent to which healthy individuals vary in their ability to achieve velopharyngeal closure for speech.
Twenty healthy adult volunteers (10 women, 10 men) were tested using an endoscopic phototransducer system that tracks variations in velopharyngeal closure during speech production. Each speaker produced multiple repetitions of three utterances that differed in phonetic content. The data were amplitude normalized and averaged for each speaker.
Average phototransducer measurements were similar across subjects for utterances containing only oral phonemes. Average percentage of velopharyngeal closure varied considerably among subjects when producing utterances containing both oral and nasal phonemes (54%-95%). Average percentage of velopharyngeal closure levels were significantly lower (p < .05) for utterances that included nasal consonants.
Phototransducer measurements of velopharyngeal closure for speech are sensitive to nasal phoneme content. The findings suggest that motor programming that accomplishes rapid oral-nasal velopharyngeal valving for speech may differ among healthy subjects. However, such variations in motor programming may not perceptually affect typical speakers. If present in individuals with abnormal velopharyngeal mechanisms, these variations may help explain variations among speakers in speech outcomes after physical and behavioral management.
本研究旨在了解健康个体在实现言语腭咽闭合能力方面的差异程度。
使用一种内镜光电换能器系统对20名健康成年志愿者（10名女性，10名男性）进行测试，该系统可追踪言语产生过程中腭咽闭合的变化。每位受试者对三种语音内容不同的话语进行多次重复发音。对每个受试者的数据进行幅度归一化处理并求平均值。
对于仅包含口腔音素的话语，受试者之间的平均光电换能器测量结果相似。在发出包含口腔和鼻音素的话语时，受试者之间的腭咽闭合平均百分比差异很大（54%-95%）。包含鼻辅音的话语的腭咽闭合平均百分比水平显著较低（p < .05）。
言语腭咽闭合的光电换能器测量对鼻音素内容敏感。研究结果表明，健康受试者之间完成言语快速口鼻腭咽瓣关闭的运动编程可能存在差异。然而，这种运动编程的差异可能不会在感知上影响正常说话者。如果存在于腭咽机制异常的个体中，这些差异可能有助于解释在物理和行为管理后，说话者在言语结果上的差异。
