Speech breathing in young adults: effect of body type

Chest wall kinematic records were obtained from 60 healthy young adults aged 18 to 23 years using a strain-gauge belt pneumograph transduction system. Recordings were taken with the subjects seated in an upright position for measurement of general respiratory function and speech breathing. The 30 males and 30 females also underwent analysis of body type and spirometric assessment. The present study aimed to investigate normative variations in speech breathing kinematics as a function of body type. Measurements of lung volume levels were referenced to two kinematic respiratory points (the 0% limit and resting-end expiratory level) and relative volume displacement of the rib cage and abdomen. Various other assessments of connected speech were analyzed for each subject. Results gathered from four speech tasks (vowel prolongation, syllable repetition, counting, and reading) indicated that an analysis of the three major subdivisions of body type (endomorphy, mesomorphy, ectomorphy) did not show any between-group differences. Further analysis of six subdivisions from the three major subdivisions of body type groups showed few between-group differences. The present investigation provides clinicians and researchers with a comprehensive analysis of the speech breathing characteristics of the young adult population. The need for comparative studies and research into the different methods of assessing chest wall kinematic behavior during speech breathing is highlighted.