Immediate effects of voice focus adjustments on hypernasal speakers' nasalance scores.

OBJECTIVES: To explore the immediate effects of voice focus adjustments on the oral-nasal balance of hypernasal speakers, measured with nasalance scores. METHODS: Five hypernasal speakers (2 M, 3 F) aged 5-12 (SD 2.7) learned to speak with extreme forward and backward voice focus. Speakers repeated oral, nasal, and phonetically balanced stimuli. Nasalance scores were collected with the Nasometer 6450. RESULTS: From the average baseline of 34.27% for the oral stimulus, nasalance increased to 46.07% in forward and decreased to 30.2% in backward focus. From the average baseline of 64.53% for the nasal stimulus, nasalance decreased to 64.13% in forward and decreased to 51.73% in backward focus. From the average baseline of 51.33% for the phonetically balanced stimulus, nasalance increased to 58.87% in forward and decreased to 46.2% in backward focus. CONCLUSIONS: Forward voice focus resulted in higher and backward voice focus resulted in lower nasalance scores during speech for a group of hypernasal speakers. However, there was an exception: One male speaker showed decreased nasalance in forward voice focus. Future research should investigate the longer-term effectiveness of the intervention.

Influence of Voice Focus Adjustments on Oral-Nasal Balance in Speech and Song.

OBJECTIVES: This study investigated the effect of training backward and forward voice focus adjustments on oral-nasal balance in speech and singing in typical speakers. METHODS: Twenty participants (10M/10F) aged 24.25 (SD 3.73) years read phonetically balanced, nasal and oral speech stimuli, and sang a song in both forward and backward voice focus conditions. A Nasometer 6450 was used to obtain nasalance scores in the different conditions. RESULTS: Results indicated that forward voice focus resulted in more nasality (p < 0.01) for the oral stimulus and song. Backward voice focus caused a decrease in nasality (p < 0.01) for the nasal stimulus, the phonetically balanced paragraph, and the song. During production of the song, males were more nasal in the forward voice focus condition than females (p = 0.01). CONCLUSIONS: Voice focus can influence oral-nasal balance in normal speakers. More research is needed to investigate whether voice focus adjustments could be helpful to speakers with oral-nasal balance disorders.

Influence of Altered Auditory Feedback on Oral-Nasal Balance in Song.

OBJECTIVES: This study explored the role of auditory feedback in the regulation of oral-nasal balance in singing in trained singers and non-singers. STUDY DESIGN: Experimental repeated measures study. METHODS: Twenty non-singers (10M/10F) and 10 female professional singers sang a musical stimulus repeatedly while hearing themselves over headphones. Over the course of the experiment, the nasal level signal in the headphones was increased or decreased so that the participants heard themselves as more or less nasal. Nasalance scores in the different phases of the experiment were quantified using a Nasometer 6450. RESULTS: A repeated measures analysis of variance demonstrated a significant main effect for singing condition F(5, 135) = 3.70, P < 0.05, and multiple comparison tests demonstrated that the nasalance scores for final baseline and the maximum and minimum nasal feedback conditions were all significantly lower than the first baseline (all comparisons P < 0.05). CONCLUSION: There were no differences between the singers and non-singers. All participants had lower nasalance scores in response to both increased and decreased nasal signal level feedback.