14th International Congress of Phonetic Sciences (ICPhS-14)

San Francisco, CA, USA
August 1-7, 1999


A Study of Vowel Production by Persons with Dysphagia

Fredericka Bell-Berti (1), Joanne L. DiMaggio (2), Nancy M. Colodny (1), Beth M. Gianino (1)

(1) St. John's University, Jamaica, NY, USA
(2) Suffolk Hearing and Speech Center, East Islip, NY, USA

Dysphagia refers to disorders of any stage of swallowing as a result of any one or more underlying pathologies, among them difficulties using the oral and/or pharyngeal musculature. Currently, the initial step in the diagnostic process is the Clinical Examination of Swallowing (CES), a non-instrumental bedside examination, which may then be followed by an instrumental examination. Dysphagia, dysarthria, and/or apraxia frequently coexist. We are reporting formant frequency measures and listener identifications of vowels of dysphagic persons with varying severity of dysarthria. Taken together, these may lead to improved understanding of the relation between acoustical variation, articulation disturbance, and the likelihood of developing dysphagia, toward the development of a non-invasive acoustically based predictor or screening tool for dysphagia.

Full Paper

Bibliographic reference.  Bell-Berti, Fredericka / DiMaggio, Joanne L. / Colodny, Nancy M. / Gianino, Beth M. (1999): "A study of vowel production by persons with dysphagia", In ICPhS-14, 823-826.