Análise da fala na acromegalia

• Autor(a) principal: Cury, Roberta Werlang Isolan
• Data de Publicação: 2014
• Tipo de documento: Tese
• Idioma: por
• Título da fonte: Biblioteca Digital de Teses e Dissertações da PUC_SP
• Texto Completo: https://tede2.pucsp.br/handle/handle/13680
• topic: Acromegalia; Acústica da fala; Fonética; Voz; Acromegaly; Speech acoustics; Phonetics; Voice; CNPQ::LINGUISTICA, LETRAS E ARTES::LINGUISTICA::LINGUISTICA APLICADA

Acromegaly is an insidious disease with clinical features resulting from abnormal exposure of tissues and systems to excess growth hormone (GH). Physiognomic changes typically occur such as the enlargement of the nose and the lips, prognathism, malocclusion, macroglossia, in addition to increased extremities. Two major structural changes in the vocal tract are particularly relevant for speech therapists and linguists working on speech disorders: enlargement of laryngeal structures and hypertrophy of the tongue, which tend to cause changes to speech and voice. Objective: perform perceptual and acoustic analyses of the speech of acromegalic patients. After the study was approved by the Human Research Ethics Committee of the Santa Casa Hospital in São Paulo (REC Code number 324/11), analyses were made of the speech samples of acromegalic patients that had been given clinical and laboratory diagnosis and treatment provided by the Endocrinology department of the abovementioned hospital. Corpus for the study: three randomized repetitions of carrier sentences containing keywords with the seven oral vowels found in Brazilian Portuguese: [a][e][ε][i] ][o],[ɔ] and [u]. Anthropometric orofacial measures (middle facial third, lower facial third, and face height) were also taken. The audio samples were subsequently analyzed using the add-on Akustik available on the software Praat for measurements of formant frequencies (F1,F2,F3,F4). The audio samples were also analyzed with the VPAS-PB (Vocal Profile Analysis Scheme VPAS) script by three experienced raters. The data underwent multivariate statistical analysis and were discussed for correlations between perceptual and acoustic data based on the phonetic description of voice quality model. The statistical analysis showed significant voice quality adjustments for acromegalic speakers: protruded jaw, laryngeal hypofunction, retracted tongue body. Acoustically, measures of F1 and F2 showed differences between men and women. For both sexes, significant correlations were detected between tongue movement and position for the acromegalic speakers. The values of F3 and F4, in turn, were correlated with adjustments of pharynx size and larynx height, thus reinforcing the findings of voice quality for the group of acromegalic speakers. The integrated perceptual and acoustic data contribute to the understanding of vocal quality, aided by the phonetic approach and the analysis of formant frequencies. The findings of this study went beyond the issue of pitch lowering as they brought up specific and fundamental information for an approach to speech aimed at people with acromegaly