Nasalance scores for normal-speaking Irish children

Area of Science:

• Speech-Language Pathology
• Acoustic Phonetics
• Pediatric Audiology

Background:

• Nasalance, a measure of velopharyngeal function, is crucial for assessing speech resonance.
• Normative data for nasalance in specific pediatric populations, like Irish children, are essential for accurate clinical assessment.
• Previous research has indicated potential variations in nasalance based on speech stimuli and speaker characteristics.

Purpose of the Study:

• To establish normative nasalance values for a standardized speech sample in Irish children.
• To investigate gender-based differences in nasalance scores.
• To determine if different speech stimuli (consonant types) yield significantly different nasalance scores.

Main Methods:

• Seventy typically developing Irish children (ages 4y 11m to 13y) participated.
• Children repeated 16 sentences categorized by consonant type (high-pressure, low-pressure, nasal).
• Nasalance scores were measured using the Kay nasometer and analyzed for effects of gender and sentence category.

Main Results:

• Normative nasalance scores were established for the total sample and sentence categories.
• No significant gender differences in nasalance scores were observed.
• Significant differences in nasalance scores were found across sentence categories (p <.001), except between high- and low-pressure consonants (p =.09).

Conclusions:

• This study provides valuable normative nasalance data for English-speaking Irish children.
• Speech stimuli significantly impact nasalance scores, highlighting the importance of stimulus selection in assessment.
• Gender does not appear to be a significant factor in nasalance scores for this population.