![]() The first two formants, F1 and F2, are typically used for vowel disambiguation and determining vowel quality in terms of the open/close and front/back dimensions ( Sumita et al., 2002, 2018). Formants are meaningful frequency components of human articulation that reflect the vocal tract’s resonance characteristics. ![]() One type of acoustic analysis that can be related to the movement of the articulators in speech is measurement of formant frequency. Therefore, speech rehabilitation after prosthetic treatment is necessary to help these patients reintegrate into society. This is because changes in the shape of the vocal tract alter its resonance properties, affecting the quality of the produced vowels and the clarity of consonant perception ( Kent et al., 2002). Therefore, the acoustic analysis of vowels is considered a helpful tool for evaluating speech production in maxillectomy patients as well as in other forms of atypical speech. In addition, the correlation between vowel quality and speech intelligibility has been reported in previous studies ( Sumita et al., 2002, 2018 Elbashti et al., 2019). Among phonetic sounds, vowels are the simplest sounds to analyze and describe acoustically without the need for an anechoic chamber ( Sumita et al., 2002). Vowels have special importance in speech acoustics and are realized as practical representations of general speech. The communication between the oral and nasal cavities lowers the intraoral air pressure, which is required for speech production, and leads to hypernasal speech, nasal air emission, and reduced loudness ( Babu et al., 2020). In other words, the structure of the vocal tract is changed by the surgical operation, thereby causing vowel disarticulation. Maxillectomy surgery for cancer treatment often results in impaired speech intelligibility due to unfavorable communication between the oral and nasal cavities ( Sumita et al., 2018 Fadhil and Mumcu, 2019). The proposed adjusted settings in Praat can yield more accurate results for formant analysis of atypical speech in maxillectomy cases when the examiner cannot precisely locate the formant frequencies using the default settings or confirm analysis results obtained using CSL.ĭigital acoustic analysis is particularly important in evaluating typical and atypical speech in different contexts, including clinical assessment, research, and education. This study highlights that the default settings in Praat can be used for formant analysis in maxillectomy patients with predictable accuracy. Results: As the findings pointed out, highly positive correlations between both software were found for all acoustic features and all Praat settings.ĭiscussion: The strong correlations between the results of both CSL and Praat suggest that both programs may have similar decision strategies for atypical speech and for both sexes. Spearman’s rank correlation coefficient was used to judge the correlation between the analysis results of both programs regarding F1 and F2 and their respective formant ranges. Thirty-seven participants were enrolled in this study for formant analysis of the five Japanese vowels (a/i/u/e/o) using CSL and Praat. Methods: CSL was used as a reference to evaluate the accuracy of Praat with both the default and newly proposed adjusted settings. Therefore, this study aimed to determine if both software produced comparable results for the first two formant frequencies (F1 and F2) and their respective formant ranges obtained from the same voice samples from Japanese participants with maxillectomy defects. Although CSL is a commercial product, Praat is freely available on the internet and can be used by patients and clinicians to practice several therapy goals. For that purpose, several acoustic software packages have been used for speech evaluation, among which Computerized Speech Lab (CSL) and Praat are widely used in clinical and research contexts. Maxillofacial prosthodontists play a critical role in restoring this function so that affected patients can enjoy better lives. Introduction: Speech impairment is a common complication after surgical resection of maxillary tumors. 2Department of Prosthodontics, Faculty of Dentistry, Mansoura University, Mansoura, Egypt.1Department of Advanced Prosthodontics, Graduate School of Medical and Dental Sciences, Tokyo Medical and Dental University, Tokyo, Japan.Ali 1,2 Yuka Sumita 1* Noriyuki Wakabayashi 1
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