Blog

Have you ever had a voice assessment before? If you are a speech language pathologist, have you ever provided a voice assessment? There are many factors related to assessing the voice, and these factors can provide a world of insight into vocal pathology. Voice assessments include examining shimmer, jitter, glissando, and the s/z ratio. These are all objective measurements of different parameters of the voice. What are these different parameters you ask? Shimmer is a measurement of amplitude variation from cycle to cycle, and jitter is a measurement of frequency variations (Zwetsch et al. (2006) as cited in Teixeira et al. (2013)). When measuring glissando, a clinician will ask the patient to say “ah” from a low frequency to a high frequency. For the “s/z” ratio, a patient is asked to hold out “s” and “z” sounds for as long as possible. Fundamental frequency and harmonic-to-noise ratio are also measurements of the voice. These measurements can be obtained utilizing a recording system specifically for measuring vocal parameters – SONA Speech. SONA Speech is a software program that allows the clinician to record a client’s voice which displays all the parameters based on a visual graph. This software will allow the clinician to observe these measurements to further understand if there is a pathology. Many times, if a patient has a vocal pathology or lacks proper respiratory support, they will not be able to sustain the requested task for a lengthy period of time. For example, if a patient is asked to say the “s” and “z” sounds for the “s/z ratio” for as long as possible, if a vocal pathology is present, these phonation times will be very short. If a patient has an especially difficult situation with their voice, a Fiberoptic Endoscopic Evaluation of Swallowing (FEES) assessment may be recommended to examine the vocal folds visually. If you or someone you know is having vocal difficulties, make sure to visit an otolaryngologist (ENT) first. Based on a visit with an otolaryngologist (ENT), you may be referred for further evaluation with a speech language pathologist. The speech language pathologist can then provide an assessment and delve further into your voice parameters and develop a treatment plan based on these results to address any vocal disorders or dysfunction.

Reference

Teixeira, J.C., Oliveira, C., and Lopes, C. (2013).Vocal Acoustic Analysis – Jitter, Shimmer and HNR Parameters. Procedia Technology. (9) Pages 1112-1122. ISSN 2212-0173.
https://doi.org/10.1016/j.protcy.2013.12.124.