Which Plosive Consonant Is More Useful for the Aerodynamic Analysis of Pathologic Voice?

Both acoustic and aerodynamic analyses are essential to evaluate the phonetic characteristics of voice pathology. The purpose of the study is to determine the magnitude of their correlation with the different types of bilabial plosive consonants.

A controlled prospective study of 35 patients diagnosed with unilateral vocal fold paralysis was performed. The sustained vowel /a/ and bilabial voiceless consonants were used. Three common acoustic parameters were measured from a sustained vowel /a/ and aerodynamic parameters from a set of syllables /pi/, /phi/, and /p'i/. We determined the correlation coefficients between acoustic and aerodynamic measurements for the bilabial plosive consonants /pi/, /phi/, and /p'i/.

The mean values of acoustic parameters were higher than the thresholds of pathology. The mean values of aerodynamic parameters varied according to the types of consonants. The correlation between acoustic and aerodynamic parameters was significantly larger with the consonant /phi/ compared with the consonants /p'/ and /p/. The magnitudes of correlation were higher with the consonant /phi/ compared with the consonants /p'/ and /p/.

The plosive consonant /phi/ may represent a more valuable investigative consonant than the consonants /p/ or /p'/ for aerodynamic analysis of voice pathology, especially in patients with unilateral vocal fold paralysis.