Nasometry normative data for young Dutch children.

Area of Science:

• Speech-language pathology
• Pediatric audiology
• Craniofacial anomalies

Background:

• Hypernasality impacts speech development in children, necessitating early intervention before age six.
• Nasometry provides objective nasalance evaluation, but requires language-specific normative data.
• Existing Dutch speech stimuli for hypernasality assessment include Van Zundert and Moolenaar-Bijl sentences.

Purpose of the Study:

• Determine normative nasalance data and cutoff points for Dutch children aged 4-6 using two speech stimuli sets.
• Compare the effectiveness of Van Zundert and Moolenaar-Bijl sentences for hypernasality assessment.
• Provide essential data for diagnosing hypernasality in young Dutch children.

Main Methods:

• Recruited 118 children with normal speech (teacher-verified) from schools.
• Administered nasometry using two Dutch speech stimuli sets: Van Zundert (oral/oronasal) and Moolenaar-Bijl (oral).
• Analyzed 55 suitable recordings, comparing results across age groups, gender, and sentence sets.

Main Results:

• No significant differences in nasalance scores were found between age groups or genders.
• Significant differences emerged between the two speech stimuli sets, though confidence intervals overlapped.
• Established normal nasalance ranges: 3-19% for oral sentences and 17-37% for oronasal sentences.

Conclusions:

• The Moolenaar-Bijl sentence set is recommended for evaluating hypernasality in young Dutch children due to its brevity and intelligibility.
• The derived normative nasalance scores are applicable to Dutch children aged 4-6.
• This research provides crucial data for accurate and timely diagnosis of hypernasality in this population.