James C. Hardy

Palatal lift prostheses for treatment of palatopharyngeal incompetence

It appears that the palatal lift prosthesis is an effective prosthesis to improve palatopharyngeal incompetence in selected patients. Despite the inconvenience and problems associated with a prosthesis, this procedure is indicated for selected patients who have anatomically normal palates that are dysfunctional. The ultimate benefit of the palatal lift prostheses to the speech of the patients is not the subject of this report. However, it should be noted that many patients can benefit from speech therapy after a satisfactory prosthetic result has been achieved.

Dynamic Characteristics of Air‐Pressure Measuring Systems Used in Speech Research

A method was developed to measure empirically the dynamic characteristics of air‐pressure transducers and associated attachments utilized in speech research. With this method, frequency‐response data were collected for transducers used in measuring magnitudes of air pressure associated with speech production. The effect of attaching hypodermic needles (used for trachial punctures to measure subglottal air pressure) and plastic tubes (used for measuring intraoral and intraesophageal air pressures) to these transducers was also studied. In addition, frequency‐response data were collected for two low‐range pressure transducers that are used in conjunction with pneumotachographs (for measuring rates of airflow through the vocal tract). The effect of pressure magnitude upon the frequency response of an air‐pressure transducer was determined. Conclusions are offered on the basis of the data obtained, and implications for speech research are suggested.