Respiratory and laryngeal contributions to maximum phonation duration

Maximum phonation duration (MPD) is a common assessment procedure in speech-language pathology. However, the specific contributions of the respiratory and phonatory components of the speech-production mechanism to this task are not typically assessed. Six women and 6 men with normal speech and voice were monitored for lung volume during a standard MPD task, and for laryngeal airway resistance (Rlaw) during a modified MPD (slow syllable-repetition) task. On average, subjects used 90% of their vital capacity (VC) for their best MPD trial. There was no systematic relation between MPD and VC for these subjects. Rlaw was strongly correlated with MPD for the men (r(s) = 0.886 for /a/; r(s) = 0.829 for /i/), but not for the women. Rlaw increased linearly as lung volume decreased (slope > 0.15) for a subset of trials (32%). This was a common pattern for four of the subjects. The clinical utility of MPD to assess breathing for speech is questioned because of the lack of association between MPD and VC, and some atypical laryngeal-valving strategies.