Table of Contents

ABSTRACT

Understanding the vocal fold vibratory characteristics analyzed from laryngeal high-speed videoendoscopy (LHSV) is essential to ensuring accurate clinical judgment. Commonly, the LHSV-based analysis methods quantify the glottal area waveform (GAW), extracted from the LHSV images, to generate LHSV-based measures that are applicable in describing the vocal fold vibration. The present study characterizes the LHSV-based measures (i.e., F0GAW, jitterGAW, shimmerGAW, OQGAW, and Nyquist plot) among normal speakers across genders. The participants consist of 20 normophonic males (mean age of 22.30 ± 1.42) and 36 normophonic females (mean age of 22.28 ± 1.26). Each participant underwent procedures of LHSV to obtain the images of the vocal fold vibration, which were then analyzed to generate the LHSV-based measures. Compared to the previous studies, the normal speakers in the present results demonstrated lower F0GAW and jitterGAW but higher OQGAW. For shimmerGAW, males and females demonstrated lower and higher values, respectively, in comparison to those of the previous findings. In terms of gender-related differences, all of the quantitative parameters, except for jitterGAW, were found to be different between males and females. Findings of the Nyquist plots revealed that the majority of normal speakers demonstrated the features of broad rim and scattered rim, with comparable distribution across genders. With the use of the current recommended procedures, the present study offers more reliable and conclusive findings of the LHSV-based measures of normal speakers across genders. The gender-related differences in most of the LHSV-based measures suggest that different normative data for males and females are required.

Keywords: Laryngeal high-speed videoendoscopy, glottal area waveform, normal speakers, gender-related differences, voice