NOVEL STIMULI FOR OBTAINING NASALANCE MEASURES FROM YOUNG-CHILDREN

The use of novel stimuli for obtaining nasalance measures in young chi ldren was the focus of this study. The subjects were 20 children witho ut a history of communication disorders and 20 children at risk for ve lopharyngeal insufficiency (VPI), Each subject recited three passages; the standard Zoo Passage, and two novel stimuli that were named the T urtle Passage and the Mouse Passage, Like the Zoo Passage, the Turtle Passage contained no normally nasal consonants, The Mouse Passage was about 11% nasal consonants, which is similar to the Rainbow Passage. S tatistical analysis showed no significant difference between the mean nasalance for the Zoo Passage and the Turtle Passage for either the su bjects without risk of VPI (15.4% vs 15.7%) or for those at risk (30.4 % vs 28.8%), Nasalance measures for the Mouse Passage were significant ly higher than for either the Zoo Passage or the Turtle Passage, Liste ners rated the stimuli on a 5-point equal-appearing intervals scale, T he correlation coefficient between listener judgments of hypernasality and nasalance was significant for the Zoo Passage (r = 0.70) and for the Turtle Passage (r = 0.51) but not significant for the Mouse Passag e (r = 0.32), Using cut-off scores of 22% for nasalance and 2.25 for h ypernasality, the sensitivity for the Zoo Passage was 0.72, and for th e Turtle Passage, 0.83.