Marziye Eshghi

Spectral analysis of word-initial alveolar and velar plosives produced by Iranian children with cleft lip and palate

Spectral moment analysis (SMA) was used to describe voiceless alveolar and velar stop-plosive production in Persian-speaking children with repaired cleft lip and palate (CLP). Participants included 11 children with bilateral CLP who were undergoing maxillary expansion and 20 children without any type of orofacial clefts. Four of the children with CLP also exhibited backed (palatal) placement for alveolar stops. All children produced consonant-vowel-consonant nonsense words that targeted the plosives /t/ and /k/. SMA revealed that children with CLP had significantly reduced first spectral moment of /t/ and /t/-/k/ difference. Children with CLP who produced palatal stops for alveolar targets also had lower but non-significant first spectral moments for /t/ as compared with children with CLP who did not produce palatal stops. The results are consistent with previously reported findings for English-speaking children with repaired CLP and further suggest that maxillary arch constriction may be a contributing factor for (a) reduced spectral distinction of alveolar targets and/or (b) palatal substitutions for alveolar targets.

Velopharyngeal status of stop consonants and vowels produced by young children with and without repaired cleft palate at 12, 14, and 18 months of age: A preliminary analysis

Purpose The objective was to determine velopharyngeal (VP) status of stop consonants and vowels produced by young children with repaired cleft palate (CP) and typically developing (TD) children from 12 to 18 months of age. Method Nasal ram pressure (NRP) was monitored in 9 children (5 boys, 4 girls) with repaired CP with or without cleft lip and 9 TD children (5 boys, 4 girls) at 12, 14, and 18 months of age. VP status was categorized as open or closed for oral stops and vowels in three contexts-consonant-vowel syllables, vowel-consonant-vowel syllables, and isolated vowels-on the basis of the presence or absence of positive nasal ram pressure. Results At 12 months of age, TD children produced 98% of stops and vowels in syllables with VP closure throughout the entire segment compared with 81% of stops and vowels for children with CP (p < .0001). There were no significant group differences at 14 or 18 months of age. Conclusions TD children exhibit consistent VP closure for stop consonants and vowels at 12 months of age. Some children with repaired CP do not achieve consistent closure until 14 months of age, approximately 3 to 4 months following palate repair.

Vowel nasalization might affect the envelop of the vowel signal by reducing the magnitude of the rising and falling slope amplitude

Electrical analog study of the vocal tract has long time ago shown that nasalization can cause a drop of 5–10 dB in the overall vowel amplitude (House and Stevens, 1956). In this preliminary study, the magnitude of rising and falling slope amplitudes from the vowel signal was introduced as a new index to discriminate oral vowels from nasalized vowels. Two speech samples of /iti/ and /iki/ were produced by two normal children and two age-matched children with cleft lip and palate and hypernasal speech. Speech samples were digitally recorded using a microphone and CSL software. The PRAAT software was used to extract the text file of the vowel segment (i.e., from the initiation of the vowel periodicity to the initiation of the constriction interval of the following plosive). Then, the text files were analyzed by MATLAB to measure amplitude rising and falling slopes of the vowel signal. Results indicated that mean falling and rising slopes of the amplitude in the nasalized vowel are smaller than those of the ...

Vocal Loudness as Contributory to the Occurrence of Obligatory Posterior Nasal Turbulence

Two cases are presented that show increased loudness as contributory to the occurrence of audible posterior nasal turbulence as an obligatory symptom. Case 1 was an 18-month-old boy with repaired cleft palate who exhibited sporadic posterior nasal turbulence with velar flutter that was associated with increased loudness. Case 2 was a 4-year-old boy with repaired cleft palate who exhibited relatively frequent posterior nasal turbulence with velar flutter that was associated with pervasive and excessive loudness. Following 3 therapy sessions, loudness was reduced and audible nasal turbulence was eliminated. Clinical implications are discussed.

Covert acoustic markers of alveolar-velar stop contrasts in the speech of two-year-old children with and without repaired cleft palate

The development of backed alveolar stops in children with repaired cleft palate (CP) may be due to reduced maxillary arch dimensions (Zajac et al., 2012; Eshghi et al, 2013). Shriberg et al. (2003) have also suggested that otitis media (OM) may be a marker for backed articulation in children without CP. The present study sought to explore acoustic markers of alveolar and velar stops in two-year old children with and without repaired CP. All children were from American-English speaking families, had competent VP function as determined by nasal ram pressure (NRP) monitoring, and had hearing within normal limits. Speech samples consisted of words with initial alveolar and velar stops. Audio recordings of six children with repaired CP, (2 males, 4 females), seven children with OM (6 males, 1 female), and 13 typically developing (TD) children (7 males, 6 females) were analyzed acoustically. Results indicated that mean first spectral moment was smallest (6.03 kHz) for the alveolar sounds produced by children wi...

A case report of nasal fricatives with grimacing: Evidence for spectral marking of the /s/-/ʃ/ contrast

A three-year old girl with repaired bilateral cleft lip and palate was observed to produce anterior nasal fricatives (ANFs) with grimacing during video administration of GFTA-3. ANFs are learned maladaptive articulations used to replace oral fricatives. They are produced by occluding the oral cavity and forcing all airflow through an open velopharyngeal (VP) port that results in turbulent noise at the anterior liminal valve of the nose. Although the girl had normal hearing at the time of testing, she had a history of conductive hearing loss and ventilation tubes. Pressure-flow testing confirmed VP dysfunction and a small nasal area during breathing. The girl appeared to grimace more severely during production of targeted /ʃ/ as compared to /s/ sounds. Greater grimacing on /ʃ/ was confirmed by a forced-choice task with three raters who independently viewed randomized video segments of /s/-/ʃ/ words. Spectral moment analysis revealed higher spectral mean, more negative skewness, and higher kurtosis for ANFs...

Acoustic-temporal aspects of stop-plosives in the speech of Persian-speaking children with cleft lip and palate

Abstract Purpose: The main objective was to examine temporal parameters of stop-plosives in Persian-speaking children with repaired cleft lip and palate (CLP). Method: Eleven children with repaired bilateral CLP and 20 typically-developing children participated in the study. Stop-gap duration (SGD) and voice-onset time (VOT) were measured based on digital waveform and spectrographic displays. Result: Separate linear mixed model analyses showed significantly longer SGDs for children with CLP for all plosives in word-mid and final positions. Furthermore, children with CLP tend to produce longer VOTs for all voiceless plosives. Conclusion: Persian-speaking children with repaired CLP prolong stop-gap segments, similar to findings reported for English-speaking children with CLP. Prolonged segments may be due to an active strategy to increase oral air pressure and/or improve perceptual accuracy of speech segments.

Gender-based variation in the phonetic representation of boundary tones in Persian declarative and interrogative utterances

This study investigated the phonetic representation of boundary tones in Persian declarative and interrogative utterances. Speech samples of the study were selected from Persian speech database, i.e., FARSDAT. These samples were produced by adult Persian speakers ranged in age from 20 to 45 years. PRAAT software was used for measuring the variation of F0 per millisecond at boundary tones. For investigating the phonetic representation of declarative sentences, a group of ten men and ten women were selected and each speaker produced 10 declarative utterances. Another group of ten men and ten women were selected for the investigation of phonetic representation of boundary tones in interrogative utterances. Each participant produced a yes-no question and a wh-question. Statistical analysis revealed significant difference (p< 0.05) between men and women regarding the variation of F0 at the boundary tones of declarative sentences and wh-questions. F0 was observed to fall faster at the boundary tones of declarat...

Nasal coarticulation in normal infants: A physiological analysis

There are conflicting views regarding coarticulation in speech of children. Kent (1983) suggested that children’s speech is more “segmental” while Nittrouer et al. (1989) proposed that speech of young children has “syllabic organization” with syllables being units of speech production. According to Nittrouer et al. (1989), children may demonstrate more coarticulation than adults. The purpose of this study was to examine nasal coarticulation in the speech of infants over time. Nasal ram pressure (NRP) and audio signals were obtained from ten typically developing infants (five males and five females) at 12, 14, and 18 months of age. Six subjects produced 39 nasal syllables (either NV, VN, NVN, or VNV) at 12 months of age. Six subjects produced 62 nasal syllables at 14 months of age and eight subjects produced 95 nasal syllables at 18 months of age. Results revealed positive NRP at the midpoint of only 20% of vowels either preceding or following nasal consonants at 12 months of age. Positive NRP, however, wa...

Velopharyngeal status of vowels produced with and without hard glottal attack in children with repaired cleft palate

The objective of this study was to describe velopharyngeal (VP) closure patterns of isolated vowels produced by infants with repaired cleft palate (CP). Nasal ram pressure (NRP) and audio signals were obtained from six infants with repaired CP (four males and two females). Two infants were 12 months of age and four were 18 months of age. All infants were from American-English speaking families without known syndromes. A total number of 95 isolated vowels were analyzed perceptually and spectrographically. Fourteen vowels were identified as produced with hard glottal attack. Three infants produced all vowels with at least 96% complete VP closure. Three other infants produced all vowels with 59% complete VP closure and 39% partial VP closure. In addition, one of the infants produced an isolated vowel with a completely open velopharynx. Vowels with hard glottal attack, however, were produced with 100% complete VP closure across all subjects, regardless of VP status for vowels without hard glottal attack. It i...