fatemeh abnavi

Teachers, as professional voice users, are at high risk of voice disorders. The greater their dependency on voice as a means of social and professional satisfaction, the worse the effects of voice disorders on the quality of their lives. Voice complaints may have a great impact on the quality of teachers’ lives. There are no self-appraisal protocols for teacher's quality of life. Therefore, little is known about how valid the Persian version of VHI and V-RQOL scales are. It is also unknown which of the aforementioned scales best describes the effect of voice disorder on the population under investigation. As such, it is important to know to what extent the aforementioned scales correlate with each other. Therefore, the aim of this study was to calculate the correlation between total scores of the Persian versions of VHI and V-RQOL scales administered to teachers with voice disorders.
Method and Materials: This study was a cross-sectional descriptive-analytical one. The participants were 32 female primary teachers with voice disorders recruited through available sampling. In order to confirm that the participants suffer from voice disorders, they were asked to express the sound /a/ with their habitual pitch and loudness for a period of 7 seconds. Sound samples were recorded, while environmental noise was controlled (less than 50 dB). In the next step, the acoustic parameters (F0, SD F0, NNE, HNR, Shimmer and Jitter) were investigated in a 5 second interval of recorded sound using Praat software. If the values of the acoustic parameters were higher than normal, the sample was judged as abnormal. Then the teachers with a disordered voice sample were asked to read and complete the Persian version of the VHI and V-RQOL forms carefully. The normality of data distribution was tested by using Shapiro-Wilkes test and the correlation between the total score of the two questionnaires was assessed by Pearson's correlation test.
Shapiro-Wilkes test showed that the data was normally distributed. The correlation between the total score of VHI and V-RQOL was assessed using Pearson's correlation test. The results revealed a significant correlation between the overall scores of the participants on VHI and V-RQOL scales (r=-0.876, p Since a significant negative correlation exists between the scores gained by teachers with voice disorders on the VHI and V-RQOL questionnaires, it is concluded that both questionnaires measure the same feature (voice related quality of life). So, it is suggested that experts in clinical practice should use either of the two scales as they wish. In other words, there is no need to use both of them.

Various types of cervical collars have being used to immobilize the cervical spine. There was no information regarding the effectiveness of Cervicothoracic collars (Minerva) on restriction of motions in cervical spine. Therefore, the purpose of this study was to evaluate the immobilization achieved follow the use of Minerva collar in cervical and Cervicothoracic spine.
Twenty healthy subjects (10 females and 10 males) were recruited in the study with no history of pain, deformity and surgery in spine. A motion analysis system was used to record the motions of cervical, upper thoracic and cervicothoracic in flexion, extension, lateral bending and rotation with and without Minerva collar.
The motion restriction of the upper cervical spine obtained with Minerva collar varied between 86.32 and 90%. The range of flexion/extension of cervical and cervicothoracic parts decreased by 27.35 and 56.32%, respectively follow the use of Minerva collar. The flexion/ extension range of motion of this segment decreased by 77.85 and 63.25%, respectively between occiput and T12.
The maximum restriction of motion with Minerva collar was achieved in cervical spine. Due to the efficiency of Minerva collar to restrict the motions of cervical, especially in the upper part.

Flaccid dysarthria is a group of motor speech disorders. Muscle weakness and reduced muscle tone, speed, range, and accuracy of speech movements are the primary speech features in these patients. Speech acoustic patterning in these patients shows deficits in motor control including problems in timing, articulatory coordination and laryngeal control. The aim of the present study was to investigate the speech timing through second-formant transition (F2T) acoustic analysis.
In this descriptive-analytical, cross-sectional and case-control study, ten speakers with flaccid dysarthria and ten speakers without dysarthria were participated. After exposure to the test environment, acoustic signals related to target words including voiced and voiceless stops were collected and recorded. After recording data through the software of Praat, spectrogram of each word was carefully examined to determine the second-formant transition.
The people with mild to moderate flaccid dysarthria possessed longer second-formant transition comparing with normal individuals and also differences between the two groups in bilabial and dental consonants were significant (P ≤ 0.05).
Increased duration of the second-formant transition in individuals with mild to moderate flaccid dysarthria indicates that in these patients, there are defects in the coordination, timing of movements and articulatory implementation to produce the target segment. In addition, the clinical implication of these results is that different consonants show varying sensitivity to the problem of speech motor control. Speech-language pathologists should pay special attention to duration of second-formant transition (bilabial, dental) and rate of variation in the program for flaccid dysarthria.

Changes in speech production are expected with aging. These changes are affected by changes in anatomy and physiology of speech production system, sensory feedbacks, motor control, and central processing of speech in older adults. Since normal aging involves a slowing of neural processes, it may be expected that speech and articulation rate are changed. The aim of this systematic review was to examine the changes in speech and articulation rate with aging.
PubMed, Google Scholar, Scopus and Web of Science databases were searched using the keywords “aging” and “elderly” in combination with “speech rate” and “articulation rate” for finding articles published between the years 1959 and 2016.
According to exclusion and inclusion criteria, 15 articles were selected. According to Evidence-Based Medicine (EBM) Resources, these articles were located on third level. Results of four articles were contradictory with else. More of the studies showed that speech and articulation rate decreased with aging.
This is expected that by reasoning anatomical changes and decreases in cognitive capacity in aging, speech and articulation rate decreases.

Speech and language pathologists are the professional voice users who are using their voices as a primary tool to carry out their occupational duties. Professional voice users are considered to be at risk of developing voice disorders since they lack proper care of their vocal health and voice management. The aim of this study was to determine the voice handicap index (VHI) in two groups of speech and language pathologists with years of service less than and more than of ten years.
ýIn this analytical cross-sectional study, convenience sampling method was used and 38 speech and language pathologists in Isfahan city, Iran, were selected according to be available in the city. They were purposely divided into two groups. In addition; the data of voice handicap index application forms were collected to evaluate the voice handicap index in speech and language pathologists. The average scores of both acoustic parameters and voice handicap index for the two groups were analyzed using Mann-Whitney test.
The total voice handicap index score for the two groups was less than the cut-off point in the questionnaire. ýMoreover, the mean and standard deviation scores of voice handicap index and three sub-tests of speech and ýlanguage pathologists with more than 10-year work experiences was fewer than those with work experiences less ýthan 10 years (P Although, speech and language pathologists may abuse or misuse their voices at the beginning of their professions ýdue to the lack of knowledge and experience, they will realize significant impacts on vocal parameters after several ýyears of working in this area.ý

Wilson disease is a rare metabolic disorder and damaged areas of the brain in this disease are related to the coordination of movements. Therefore, the disease is considered as a motor disorder. Dysarthria is the most common speech problem in these patients. The purpose of this research is to study the effect of intensive voice therapy based on principles of LSVT on improvement of articulation skills and voice features and finally, its impacts on speech intelligibility as well as voice handicap index in patients with Wilson. A 23-year-old female was diagnosed with Wilson's disease. Acoustic assessment of voice, speech articulation, speech intelligibility, and voice handicap index were performed before and after Intensive Voice Therapy based on the LSVT principles.bn After the treatment, significant increases in acoustic parameters of voice, speech articulation and also speech intelligibility were observed which consequently resulted in a considerable reduction of voice handicap index (VHI). Intensive Voice Therapy based on LSVT principles was effective in improving the acoustic parameters of voice, speech articulation, voice handicap index, and speech intelligibility, and generally, improving verbal communication which has the positive impact on the quality of patient’s life.

Broca’s aphasia is one of the types of non-fluent aphasia that its main feature is imprecise speech sound productions. Different surveys have shown that patients with Broca’s aphasia have defects which can affect sound structure in their speech output، but it is less clear that the nature of these errors is an impairment in the selection and planning or articulatory implementation. Determination of the nature of speech errors in these patients is very important and necessary in order to recognize the basic mechanisms which are effective in creating these errors. The purpose of this descriptive study is to a review of studies which have investigated the nature of errors in acoustic ways in these patients. This descriptive study has been conducted by searching for the following keywords: “acoustic parameters، nature of errors، Broca’s aphasia، speech motor control and Speech errors. The following databases have also been used to conduct searches: web of knowledge، science direct، Google scholar and PubMed. Individuals with Broca’s aphasia possess defects including difficulties in timing، articulatory coordination، and laryngeal control in the field of speech motor control which are as a result of defects in the coordination، Timing of movements and articulatory implementation to produce the target segment Recent researches based on Acoustic parameters of the speech production patterns suggest that the main feature of speech impairment of people with Broca’s aphasic is a severe phonetic disorder relating to the articulator implementation of the selected and planned segments of speech.

Natural process of aging is associated with biological events which alter the structure and function of different parts of the body. larynx also undergoes age-related anatomical and physiological changes during adulthood.. According to anatomical and physiological changes of Larynx, acoustic and perceptual characteristics of voice are modified as a result of age-related sequential changes. Due to mentioned changes, Restriction on voice producing, can have negative impact on different Aspects of Life such as social, functional, emotional, and physical fields. The purpose of this study was to compare the effect of age-related voice changes on the quality of life of the elderly and middle-aged. This analytical study has been descriptive. The subjects were included40middle-aged individuals (Age group 50-60 years) as well as40 elders (Age group 60-70 years).After reviewing the inclusion and exclusion criteria, a study of Cognitive health of the elderly was conducted using the Mini Mental Status Examination (MMSE). Also, the quality of life was evaluated based on Voice Handicap Index (VHI).). Then the overall score of VHI and sub-tests were calculated for each individual. The results were analyzed by descriptive and analytical statistics Middle-aged group- adult population of working age- have received higher scores on voice handicap index compared to elderly and difference between two groups was significant.(P<0.05). In middle-aged group, the age-related anatomical and physiological changes of Larynx, have had more effects on daily Performance. Considering the fact that this group of adult has retained occupational and social functioning more than elders, age-related voice changes, have had greater effects on their quality of life.

Broca’s aphasia is one type of non-fluent aphasia, of which imprecise speech sound production is a main feature. Acoustic patterns of speech in patients with Broca’s aphasia exhibit certain defects in the field of motor control such as difficulties in timing, articulatory coordination, and laryngeal control. In this study, the speech timing parameter in patients with mild to moderate Broca’s aphasia was investigated by the acoustic variable of murmur duration /m/ to determine the nature of motor control as well as the nature of errors.Methods & Materials: This was a cross-sectional case-control study. The subjects included 13 patients with mild to moderate Broca's aphasia as well as 13 normal individuals. After exposure to the appropriate test environment, acoustic signals related to target words were collected and recorded. After recording data with the PRAAT software, the spectrogram of each word was carefully examined to determine the murmur duration. Moreover, Paired T-test was used to compare the murmur duration between the two groups. People with mild to moderate Broca’s aphasia possess longer murmur duration in comparison to normal individuals. There was a significant difference between the two groups (p<0.001). The increasing duration of the nasal murmur in individuals with mild to moderate Broca’s aphasia indicated that speech errors in these patients are due to defects in coordination, timing of movements and articulatory implementation in producing the target segment. Therefore, understanding the nature of errors and effective mechanisms in creating them in this group of patients allows the planning of more appropriate therapeutic strategies on the basis of more accurate assessments.