Nasalance and nasality in low pressure and high pressure speech.

OBJECTIVE

This study compared nasalance measures and nasality ratings in low pressure (LP) and high pressure (HP) speech.

SUBJECTS

The subjects for this study were 25 children ranging in age from 5 to 13 years. Twenty of the subjects were patients followed by a craniofacial team, and five had no history of communication disorder.

RESULTS

The mean nasalance for the LP speech was 29.98% (SD, 16.16), and the mean nasalance for the HP speech was 30.28% (SD, 15.35). The mean nasality rating for the LP speech was 2.31, and the mean nasality rating for the HP speech was 2.59. Separate paired t tests revealed no significant difference between the LP or the HP speech for either the nasalance scores or the nasality ratings. The correlation coefficient between nasalance and nasality for the LP speech was r = 0.78, and for the HP speech r = 0.77. Using a cutoff of 26% for nasalance and 2.0 for nasality, Nasometer test sensitivity was 0.84 and test specificity was 0.88.

CONCLUSIONS

In general, clinicians may obtain valid measures of nasalance and/or ratings of nasality using either an LP stimulus or an HP stimulus. Sensitivity and specificity scores indicated that the Nasometer was reasonably accurate in distinguishing between normal and hypernasal speech samples.