Voice disorders in children with oral motor dysfunction: perceptual evaluation pre and post oral motor therapy

A few clinical investigations of children's voices have suggested a relation between voice deviation and oral motor and sensory dysfunction. This motivated the present retrospective study of the occurrence of voice disorders in a group of children with oral motor problems. A further aim was to evaluate the effect of an oral motor and articulatory treatment programme upon voice function in this patient group. Subjects were 38 children with oral motor deficits who had received and finished therapy at the clinic. The recordings of a picture naming task, before onset of therapy and at therapy ending, were selected. The voices were presented in random order on a test tape and perceptually evaluated by an expert panel of speech pathologists. Eleven perceptual parameters were selected, based on previous investigations of children's voices. Ten of these parameters were represented by a 100 mm visual analogue scale. Register was represented by a categorical scale with the options chest, falsetto, and child voice register. The results were compared with previous investigations of child voice function. Results indicated: 1) The occurrence of voice disorders in the present group of children with oral motor difficulties was somewhat lower than in children with normal articulation. 2) Oral motor treatment also influenced and improved the perceptual impression of voice quality in this group.