Nasalance measures in Cantonese-speaking women

Objectives: To establish and evaluate stimulus materials for nasalance meas urement in Cantonese speakers, to provide normative data for Cantonese-spea king women, and to evaluate session-to-session reliability of nasalance mea sures. Participants and setting: One hundred forty-one Cantonese-speaking women wi th normal resonance who were students in the Department of Speech and Heari ng Sciences, University of Hong Kong. Procedures: Participants read aloud four speech stimuli: oral sentences, na sal sentences, an oral paragraph (similar to the Zoo Passage), and an oral- nasal paragraph (similar to the Rainbow Passage). Data were collected and a nalyzed using the Kay Nasometer 6200. Data collection was repeated for a su bgroup of speakers (n = 28) on a separate day. Nasalance materials were eva luated by using statistical tests of difference and correlation. Results: Group mean (standard deviation) nasalance scores for oral sentence s, nasal sentences, oral paragraph, and oral-nasal paragraph were 16.79 (5. 99), 55.67 (7.38), 13.68 (7.16), and 35.46 (6.22), respectively. There was a significant difference in mean nasalance scores for oral versus nasal mat erials. Correlations between stimuli were as expected, ranging from 0.43 to 0.91. Session-to-session reliability was within 5 points for over 95% of s peakers for the oral stimuli but for less than 76% of speakers for the nasa l and oral-nasal stimuli. Conclusions: Standard nasalance materials have been developed for Cantonese , and normative data have been established for Cantonese women. Evaluation of materials indicated acceptable differentiation between oral and nasal ma terials. Two stimuli (nasal sentences and oral paragraph) are recommended f or future use. Comparison with findings from other languages showed similar ities in scores; possible language-specific differences are discussed. Sess ion-to-session reliability was poorer for nasal than oral stimuli.