Phonation

The voice pitch is a trait that has evolved through sexual selection of humans and has become sexually dimorphic. This trait is sexually dimorphic because for males the voice pitch has the tendency to be lower and this because the ‘adam’s apple’ is a thicker layer of cartilage that influence the vocal cords in males along with higher testosterone levels predict low voice men.. For females, the voice pitch tends to be lower because without this extra layers of cartilage makes the vocal cords have a higher pitch and also with higher estrogen levels enables a higher pitch voice. Sexual selection is the dominant evolutionary cause for the sexual difference in voice pitch, evidence suggests that the sexual difference in the human voice evolved…

I will now describe the myoelastic-aerodynamic theory using the following diagram. Diagram A starts on the exhalation phase and the vocal folds are in phonatory position. The vocal folds are contracted by the Interarytenoids and the Lateral cricoid arytenoids. These muscles (IA and LCA) put the vocal folds in the phonotory position to initiate the vibratory cycle. Medial compression is the force exerted by the IA and LCA. The LCA and IA remain contracted throughout phonation when in the…

A French mathematician name Daniel Bernoulli (1700-1782) was able to identify an energy principle to determine how internal pressure and liquid or gas content react. Bernoulli’s principle educates us about how the vocal folds are used for phonation. With the myoelasticity helping the vocal folds to return to a natural resting state, the intrinsic muscles located in the larynx help the folds come together, closing off the glottis. The stream of air and gas being pushed out of the lungs puts…

The patient struggled with this task and instead produced normal phonation rather than glottal fry. Inhalation Phonation (10:37) This speech task required the patient to produce phonation on the inhalation. This task assesses the ability of the true vocal folds without the involvement of any supraglottal activity. The patient had difficulty with this task and phonated on the exhalation rather than the inhalation. Laryngeal Massage (10:56) This speech task involved the clinician performing a…

The first three recordings were collected two weeks before the start of the treatment period. Two more recording were made at the completion of the treatment groups treatment period and the final two recording were collected at a six-month post-treatment follow-up. All of the recordings were collected in a sound-treated room. The recordings were of four performed tasks: continual vowel phonation on the “ah” sound as long as possible repeated six times, reading of the “rainbow passage”, a…

The approaches I would use would be teaching the client many relaxation techniques. If anxiety and stress are major factors that affect the way Ms. Chang is using her vocal mechanism, teaching relaxation would limit tension in the vocal folds and allow for a more healthy vibration of the vocal folds. Techniques may include the yawn/sigh because “…the physiology of the yawn is incompatible with the excessive laryngeal tension that many patients exhibit. Easy, natural airflow and phonation are…

Strained Voice (Vocal Cords) Overview- We rely on our voices to inform, persuade, and interact with other people. For this, a disorder of phonation may prove very limiting, interfering with the ability to communicate with normal daily activities. “Dysphonia " is the medical term used for Strained Voice to indicate a generic voice alteration, qualitative or quantitative, temporary or permanent, structural or functional origin of one or more organs involved in the spoken speech. This alteration…

The laryngeal muscles of the phonatory system are comprised of a group of both intrinsic and extrinsic muscles. Out of these two muscle groups, the placement of the extrinsic muscles are what confuse me the most. The extrinsic laryngeal muscles are further divided into suprahyoid and infrahyoid muscles. The suprahyoid muscles attach superiorly to the hyoid bone and elevate the larynx and hyoid bone, while the infrahyoid muscles attach inferiorly to the hyoid bone and depress the larynx and the…

A joint subcommittee was formed in December 1994 and they addressed issues about second language speakers that are audiologists, SLPs and students that have a linguistic competence of English and have an accent or a dialect. Would this have any type of affect when doing procedures? Is there any research that shows that audiologists or SLPs with a “different” dialect or accent would affect those who need their treatment? “There is no research to support the belief that audiologists and…

In the yellow box, you can see that Mr. Hanson can produce nasalizations very well. In this image, he is making the /m/ sounds of “my motorcycle.” The nasal formants in the yellow boxes show the correct way to form a nasalization with low are dark first formant and a light space with little to no formant two. In these screenshots, you can see that Mr. Hanson’s speech is pretty much constantly a nasalization. In the boxes above, the blue box is his normal speech, and the green box is the when…