Non-organic dysphonia. II. Phonetograms for normal and pathological voices

The clinical usefulness of the phonetogram, i.e. a graph showing the sound pressure level (SPL) of softest and loudest possible phonation over the entire fundamental frequency range of a voice, was investigated. Phonetograms of 29 female non-organic dysphonic patients, 17 healthy female subjects, 18 non-organic dysphonic male patients and 12 healthy male subjects were compared. The female patients showed significantly lower SPL values for loudest phonation when compared with healthy female subjects, while no significant difference was seen in the male subjects in this regard. With respect to the SPL values for softest phonation, on the other hand, the male dysphonic patients showed significantly higher SPL values than the healthy male subjects, whereas no significant difference was seen in the female subjects. Spectrum analysis showed that the patients had a more dominating fundamental in loud phonation than did the healthy voices.