Eficacia del SpeechViewer III en niños de 6 a 10 años de edad con nódulos cordales

Abstract

The purpose of this study is to assess the use of Speech Viewer III software for providing voice therapy in a group of children with vocal nodules. The age of the patients ranged form 6 to 10 years. Two groups of patients were randomly assembled. Patients included in the active group received speech therapy using the Speech Viewer III software. Patients included in the control group received conventional voice therapy without computer support. Voice analysis before and after voice therapy, was performed using Ling Waves Soft-ware. Shimmer, Jitter, fundamental frequency and respiratory mechanic were studied. The phonemes used for acoustic analysis were the 5 vowel sounds of the Spanish Lan-guage. A significant difference was find in the shimmer of the vowel /a/ when both groups of patients were compared. Non-significant differences were found in analysis of the other 4 vowels. When voice parameters were compared before and after voice therapy in the active group, the analysis using the vowel /a/, showed significant differences in shimmer, fun-damental frequency and respiratory mechanic. In contrast, patients from the control group showed significant differences before and after voice therapy, only in respiratory mechanic. From the results, it seems that overall, the use of Speech Viewer III for providing voice therapy, does not yield significant differences in voice parameters, as compared with conventional voice therapy without computer support.However, it should be considered that voice parameters using the phoneme /a/ did showed a significant difference. Moreo-ver, acoustic analysis using the phoneme /a/, has been reported as the most reliable for evaluation purposes. Thus, it is possible that the use of Speech Viewer III, can provide an additional mild improvement for providing voice therapy in patients with vocal no-dules.