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. 2016 Oct 1;59(5):1025-1034.
doi: 10.1044/2016_JSLHR-S-15-0286.

Effects of Biofeedback on Control and Generalization of Nasalization in Typical Speakers

Elizabeth S Heller Murray  1 , Joseph O Mendoza  1 , Simone V Gill  2 , Joseph S Perkell  3 , Cara E Stepp  2
Affiliations

Effects of Biofeedback on Control and Generalization of Nasalization in Typical Speakers

Elizabeth S Heller Murray et al. J Speech Lang Hear Res. .

Erratum in

  • Erratum.
    [No authors listed] [No authors listed] J Speech Lang Hear Res. 2017 Dec 20;60(12):3461. doi: 10.1044/2017_JSLHR-S-17-0220. J Speech Lang Hear Res. 2017. PMID: 29149275 Free PMC article. No abstract available.

Abstract

Purpose: The purpose of this study was to determine the effects of biofeedback on control of nasalization in individuals with typical speech.

Method: Forty-eight individuals with typical speech attempted to increase and decrease vowel nasalization. During training, stimuli consisted of consonant-vowel-consonant (CVC) tokens with the center vowels /a/ or /i/ in either a nasal or nonnasal phonemic context (e.g., /mim/ vs. /bib/), depending on the participant's training group. Half of the participants had access to augmentative visual feedback during training, which was based on a less-invasive acoustic, accelerometric measure of vowel nasalization-the Horii oral-nasal coupling (HONC) score. During pre- and posttraining assessments, acoustically based nasalance was also measured from the center vowels /a/, /i/, /æ/, and /u/ of CVCs in both nasal and nonnasal contexts.

Results: Linear regressions indicated that both phonemic contexts (nasal or nonnasal) and the presence of augmentative visual feedback during training were significant predictors for changes in nasalance scores from pre- to posttraining.

Conclusions: Participants were able to change the nasalization of their speech following a training period with HONC biofeedback. Future work is necessary to examine the effect of such training in individuals with velopharyngeal dysfunction.

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Figures

Figure 1.
Figure 1.
Experimental design with the number of subjects and training group designation indicated. Participants were presented visually with CVC speech tokens. During training half of the participants saw speech tokens in a nasal phonemic context (Nas) and half saw speech tokens in a nonnasal phonemic context (Non). Participants also either had access only to their typical auditory feedback (0vfb) or access to visual feedback in addition to their typical auditory feedback (+vfb).
Figure 2.
Figure 2.
Representation for the magnitude change in nasalance in the three subsets. Shaded squares indicate a change in the correct direction for that subset.
Figure 3.
Figure 3.
Mean and 95% confidence intervals for the change in nasalance for nasal tokens produced with attempted decreases in nasalization (subset I-nas). Left, scores from the Pre to the Post assessments; right, scores from the Pre to the Follow-up assessments.
Figure 4.
Figure 4.
Mean and 95% confidence intervals for the change in nasalance for nasal tokens produced with attempted decreases in nasalization (subset I-nas). Left, scores from the Pre to the Post assessments; right, scores from the Pre to the Follow-up assessments.
See this image and copyright information in PMC

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