Influence of Voice Focus on Oral-Nasal Balance in Speakers of Brazilian Portuguese

• Autor(a) principal: Boer, Gillian de
• Data de Publicação: 2016
• Outros Autores: Castro Marino, Viviane Cristina de [UNESP], Berti, Larissa Cristina [UNESP], Gradim Fabron, Eliana Maria [UNESP], Bressmann, Tim
• Tipo de documento: Artigo
• Idioma: eng
• Título da fonte: Repositório Institucional da UNESP
• Texto Completo: http://dx.doi.org/10.1159/000452245; http://hdl.handle.net/11449/162412
• topic: Voice focus; Oral-nasal balance; Hypernasality; Brazilian Portuguese speakers; Nasalance

Objectives: This study investigates whether a change in speaking voice focus affects the oral-nasal balance. The investigation was undertaken with different phonetic materials in speakers of Brazilian Portuguese, which features phonological and phonetic vowel nasalization. Methods: Ten females read oral, balanced oral-nasal, and nasal loaded sentences in their normal voice, and with a backward focus and a forward focus. Nasalance scores were collected with a Nasometer 6400. Results: A repeated measures ANOVA of the nasalance scores demonstrated a significant main effect of speaking condition (F(2, 18) = 12.87, p < 0.001). The mean nasalance scores across the stimuli in the backward focus and normal speaking conditions were 36.85% (SD 16.85) and 40.18% (SD 18.02), respectively, both significantly lower than the forward focus condition at 45.38% (SD 18.90). Conclusion: The results demonstrated that speaking focus influences oral-nasal balance in normal speakers. In future research, it should be investigated whether voice focus can also modify oral-nasal balance in hypernasal speakers with cleft palate and other disorders. (C) 2016 S. Karger AG, Basel