Reliable acoustic measurements in children between 5;0 and 9;11 years: Gender, age, height and weight effects on fundamental frequency, jitter and shimmer in phonations without and with controlled voice SPL

详细信息    查看全文

• 作者：Meike Brockmann-Bauser ; ^{meike.brockmann-bauser@usz.ch" class="auth_mail" title="E-mail the corresponding author} ; Denis Beyer ^{denisbeyer@gmail.com" class="auth_mail" title="E-mail the corresponding author} ; Jö ; rg Edgar Bohlender ^{Joerg.Bohlender@usz.ch" class="auth_mail" title="E-mail the corresponding author}
• 关键词：Voice disorders ; Children ; Fundamental frequency ; Jitter ; Shimmer ; Prosody
• 刊名：International Journal of Pediatric Otorhinolaryngology
• 出版年：2015
• 出版时间：December 2015
• 年：2015
• 卷：79
• 期：12
• 页码：2035-2042
• 全文大小：911 K

文摘

Current pediatric voice assessment guidelines include instrumental measurements of fundamental frequency (F₀) and the perturbation indices jitter and shimmer. In children below 10 years, gender, age, height and weight effects on these parameters have been inconsistently characterized. Recent research in healthy children showed, that differences in habitual speaking voice intensity (voice SPL) under the usual assessment procedure significantly affect jitter and shimmer. These effects were reduced in phonations with controlled voice SPL >80 dBA. Reliable measurement methods and description of physiologic influencing factors are essential to identify pathologic voices.

Objective

This cross-sectional single cohort study investigates in children between 5;0 and 9;11 years how gender, age, height and weight affect voice F₀, jitter and shimmer in phonations at individually “medium” voice intensity (modeling the usual clinical practice) and with controlled voice SPL >80 dBA.

Subjects and methods

68 vocally healthy children (39 f/29 m) aged 5;0–9;11 years provided 3 prolonged phonations of/a/at individually “medium” and controlled voice intensity at “>80 dBA” (visual feedback, 10 cm distance). F₀ (Hz), jitter (%), shimmer (%) and voice SPL (dBA) were determined with PRAAT. Gender, age, height and weight effects without and with controlled voice SPL were assessed by descriptive statistics, Analysis of Variance and Linear Mixed Models.

Results

F₀ (Hz), jitter (%), shimmer (%) and voice SPL (dBA) were significantly different in medium voice compared to >80 dBA (p < 0.01). In medium phonations girls had a higher F₀ than boys (girls: 276.7(50.7), boys: 261.5(33.7)), but with >80 dBA this difference was only minimal (girls: 328.9(52.2), boys 327.9(51.2)). Mean jitter (0.27(0.10)) and shimmer (4.34(1.68)) were smaller and showed less spread (jitter: 0.5(0.26); shimmer: 9.47(3.47)) with >80 dBA. Gender, age, height and weight had no significant effects on F₀, jitter, shimmer and voice SPL in both phonation types (p-range = 0.42–0.99).

Conclusions

Neither without nor with controlled voice SPL there were systematic gender, age, height or weight effects on voice F₀, jitter and shimmer. Gender related F₀ discrepancies were equalized in phonations with >80 dBA. In children below 10 years gender related acoustic voice differences may be mainly linked to behavior, which should be considered in future works regarding physiologic voice development.