Normative data on nasalance scores for French speaking children

Area of Science:

• Speech-language pathology
• Acoustic analysis
• Pediatric audiology

Background:

• Establishing normative data is crucial for accurate clinical assessment.
• Velopharyngeal insufficiency (VPI) significantly impacts speech production.
• Previous nasalance norms may not be language-specific.

Purpose of the Study:

• To establish normative nasalance values in European French for children aged 8-10 years.
• To identify factors influencing nasalance scores.
• To validate the use of a nasometer for differentiating VPI.

Main Methods:

• Utilized the Nasometer II 6450 for data collection.
• Analyzed nasalance scores from 50 control children and 7 VPI subjects.
• Employed 31 French-specific verbal stimuli.

Main Results:

• Provided normative nasalance values for each verbal stimulus.
• Phonetic content (nasality, vowel height, voicing) significantly influenced scores.
• Speaker characteristics (gender, age) had minimal impact, except for VPI presence.

Conclusions:

• Confirms the necessity of language- and stimulus-specific normative values.
• Demonstrates the impact of voicing on nasalance scores for the first time.
• Highlights the need for validation with larger VPI populations.