The Usefulness of Auditory Perceptual Assessment and Acoustic Analysis as a Screening Test for Voice Problems

The aims of study were (1) to determine the cut-off values of parameters related to auditory perceptual assessment (visual analog scale [VAS]) and acoustic analysis (cepstral peak prominence [CPP], low-frequency/high-frequency [L/H] ratio, CPP SD, L/H ratio SD, acoustic voice quality index [AVQI], and cepstral spectral index of dysphonia [CSID]) for predicting voice problems within a Korean population, and (2) to verify the discriminative power of these cut-off values.

1,113 voice samples were analyzed in this study. Perceptual assessments (VAS) were performed by 5 speech-language pathologists. For the acoustic analysis, cepstral parameters, CSID, and AVQI were calculated. The cut-off values of parameters predicting voice problems were obtained using receiver operating characteristic (ROC) analysis. Additionally, the sensitivity, specificity, and area under the ROC curve (AUC) were measured.

High reliabilities were observed for the perceptual assessments. The cut-off values of parameters had a high sensitivity, specificity, and AUC. Of these, CSID was the parameter with the highest AUC values.

Each parameter demonstrated a high discriminative power for classifying the presence or absence of voice problems. The results of this study could be used as an objective criterion for screening voice problems.