Acoustic Voice Quality Index in Normophonic Tamil Speaking Adults: Effects of Age and Gender

The acoustic voice quality index (AVQI) is a multiparametric acoustic indicator widely used for objective evaluation of voice quality. Although the measure has been validated in multiple languages, normative data for Indian languages, particularly Tamil, remain limited. This study established reference AVQI values for Tamil-speaking adults and investigated the influence of age and gender on AVQI and its constituent parameters.

Voice recordings were obtained from 162 normophonic native Tamil speakers aged 20-50 years. Participants produced a sustained vowel /a/ and seven Tamil sentences adapted from consensus auditory perceptual evaluation of voice (CAPE-V) stimuli. AVQI version 03.0 and its six acoustic parameters were derived using PRAAT. One-way ANOVA and independent-sample t-test assessed the effects of age and gender.

The mean AVQI score was 3.4 (standard deviation = 1.17). Participants aged 20-30 years had significantly higher AVQI scores than those aged 41-50 years (P = 0.02). No significant gender differences were observed for overall AVQI (P = 0.75). However, females showed higher harmonic-to-noise ratio values (P < 0.001), while males had higher shimmer local (%) and shimmer dB values (P < 0.001). CPPS, slope, and tilt values did not differ significantly across gender or age.

AVQI derived from Tamil CAPE-V sentences provided a reliable, language-specific normative reference data for adults, contributing to improved clinical voice assessment and healthcare delivery. These findings support the clinical applicability of AVQI for objective voice assessment in Tamil-speaking populations and highlight subtle age and gender related differences in selected acoustic parameters.