Speech articulation after subtotal glossectomy and reconstruction with a myocutaneous flap

Speech samples of 9 subjects (8 males. I female) were recorded before and 0 .52 Sears after a partial glossectomy and reconstruction with a pectoralis major myocutaneous flap. A reading sample. a list of meaningful and nonsens e words. and a list of sustained vowels were recorded. The speech samples w ere evaluated by pairs of naive listeners and using acoustic analysis of th e vowel production. Each pair listened to the recordings of only one patien t. inter-rater agreement was satisfactory. The general impression of the sp eech outcome varied from normal to moderately impaired. The perceptually es timated impairments of speech articulation in the after,bt before compariso ns were statistically significant. Only the first formant of the vowel /i/ (rise) and the second formant of thtr vowel /a/ (drop) changed significantl y at the group level. There was a negative correlation (r = - 0.79) between the extent of tongue resection and the drop of the second formant of the v owel /a/. The perceptual variables showed a relationship (r = 0.74-0.82) wi th the: changes in the level of thc second formant of the vowel /i/. The re lationship that emerged between the: perceptual estimates and the objective r acoustic parameters suggests that it will be possible to develop clinica lly relevant test batteries for articulatory quality analysis.