NASALANCE AND NASALITY IN LOW-PRESSURE AND HIGH-PRESSURE SPEECH

Objective: This study compared nasalance measures and nasality ratings in low pressure (LP) and high pressure (HP) speech. Subjects: The sub jects for this study were 25 children ranging in age from 5 to 13 year s. Twenty of the subjects were patients followed by a craniofacial tea m, and five had no history of communication disorder. Results: The mea n nasalance for the LP speech was 29.98% (SD, 16.16), and the mean nas alance for the up speech was 30.28% (SD, 15.35). The mean nasality rat ing for the LP speech was 2.31, and the mean nasality rating for the u p speech was 2.59. Separate paired t tests revealed no significant dif ference between the LP or the up speech for either the nasalance score s or the nasality ratings. The correlation coefficient between nasalan ce and nasality for the LP speech was r = 0.78, and for the up speech r = 0.77. Using a cutoff of 26% for nasalance and 2.0 for nasality, Na someter test sensitivity was 0.84 and test specificity was 0.88. Concl usions: In general, clinicians may obtain valid measures of nasalance and/or ratings of nasality using either an LP stimulus or an HP stimul us, Sensitivity and specificity scores indicated that the Nasometer wa s reasonably accurate in distinguishing between normal and hypernasal speech samples.