Phonation stabilisation time as an indicator of voice disorder
Date
2015-08-10Author
Schaeffler, Felix
Beck, Janet M.
Jannetts, Stephen
Metadata
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Schaeffler, F., Beck, J. & Jannetts, S. (2015) Phonation stabilisation time as an indicator of voice disorder, Proceedings of the 18th ICPhS, Glasgow, , , ,
Abstract
There is increasing emphasis on use of connected
speech for acoustic analysis of voice disorder, but
the differential impact of disorder on initiation,
maintenance and termination of phonation has received
little attention. This study introduces a new
measure of dynamic changes at onset of phonation
during connected speech, phonation stabilisation
time (PST), and compares this measure with conventional
analysis of sustained vowels.
Voice samples obtained from the KayPENTAX
Disordered Voice Database were analysed (202 females,
128 males) including 'below threshold'
voices where there was a clinical diagnosis but
acoustic parameters for sustained vowels were
within the normal range.
Female disordered voices showed significantly
longer PST duration than normal voices, including
those in the 'below threshold' group. Overall differences
for male voices were also significant. Results
suggest that, at least for females, PST measurement
from connected speech could provide a more sensitive
indicator of disorder than traditional analysis of
sustained vowels. Discussions on the use of anti-retroviral drugs (ARVs) in developing countries have in the past focused on the limitations caused by the high cost of the drugs and by the lack of health system capacity to adequately deliver and make use of them (Colebunders et al. 2000; The New York Times 2001). An additional concern has been the risk of increasing resistance to ARVs if there were widespread inappropriate administration and lack of monitoring (Harries et al. 2001). Lately, however, including at the 2002 International AIDS Conference in Barcelona, there have been stronger calls for scaling up access to ARVs with less attention paid to these concerns and limitations, as expressed by Lange (2002): 'If we can get cold Coca-Cola and beer to every remote corner of Africa, it should not be impossible to do the same with drugs'.