Voiced-Voiceless Consonant Distinction in Children With Vocal Fold Nodules: A Preliminary Study.

Objectives/hypothesis: The relationship between articulatory and vocal development is not well-understood in children with vocal fold nodules (VFN). Because these children have differences in their vocal system at a time when vocal-articulatory control is developing, it is important to understand this relationship. This study examined relationships between voiced and voiceless voice onset time (VOT) measures and cepstral peak prominence (CPP) in children with VFN (3-7 years old).

Study design: Retrospective.

Methods: Acoustic data were gathered from a retrospective dataset from children with VFN ages 3-5, 5-6, and 6-7 years old using words with initial /b/ and /p/ consonants. Correlations were completed for each age group and phoneme combination to examine the relationships between CPP and VOT percent overshoot, accuracy, range, variability, and discreteness. Additionally, Wilcoxon Signed-Rank tests were completed to facilitate interpretation of the data.

Results: No relationship was found between CPP and VOT overshoot, accuracy, range, or variability. Significant findings indicated that children ages 5-6 and 6-7 with more dysphonia had less discreteness between /p/ and /b/. Wilcoxon Signed-Rank tests indicated significantly less discreteness for the 5-6-year-old group.

Conclusions: Findings suggest that children with VFN and increased dysphonia may demonstrate decreased motor control, as evidenced by the relationship between CPP and discreteness. Future research can build on these findings by using a sample with more children, prospectively designed tokens, and a control group without VFN.