engleski

MULTIDIMENSIONAL STRUCTURE OF DYSPHONIA

The aim of this research was to determine the relations between the results of objective voice analysis, perceptive voice analysis, and the results of self-assessment of vocal problems in persons with dysphonia, in order to examine the possibility to express and grade the influence of voice disorder on its acoustic features, perceived quality and social efficiency with one general measure based on unique set of variables. Thirty eight subjects (males and females) with diagnosed dysphonia participated in the research, as well as 30 control subjects, all between 20 and 64 years of age. Self-assessment was made by using the VHI. Objective voice analysis (16 variables) included analysis of sustained phonations of the vowel /a/ with MDVP (Key Elemetrics Co.) Perceptive voice assessment (3 variables) was carried out by two clinically experienced SLPs. The results of canonical analysis revealed significant relations between three different types of voice assessment. With the goal to investigate the possibility to rang the subjects by the severity of their vocal problems (mild, moderate or severe), tacsonomic analysis was used. This included 11 of original variables (5 self- assessment variables, 5 acoustic variables, and one perceptive variable) with most prominent canonical coefficients. Tacsonomic analysis showed that the subjects could be grouped into 3 separated clusters in a meaningful manner, without regard to the diagnosis.

VHI; acoustic analysis; perceptive assessment

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