The Potential Role of Speech Rate as an Etiologic Factor in Dysphonia.

Objectives/hypothesis: Speech rate is deemed as one of the contributing factors in dysphonia. This study sought out if dysphonic patients speak faster than their normal counterparts. Also, the effects of dysphonia subtype (organic, functional, and neurologic), sex, and age on speech rate were investigated.

Study design: An analytical cross-sectional study.

Methods: Reading and connected speech samples of 188 participants (128 dysphonic patients and 60 normal controls) were transcribed and their speech rates while eliminating the voiceless parts and pauses by freeware Praat were calculated in syllable/word per minute.

Results: The results indicated that dysphonic patients significantly speak faster than normal controls in connected speech with moderate to large strength of effect size (P < 0.05) and this pattern was mostly not affected by sex. The speech rate did not differ significantly between subgroups of dysphonic patients (P > 0.05), except for speech rate in connected speech and average speech rate of reading and connected speech tasks between organic, functional, and neurological dysphonic patients with normal controls (P < 0.05). Also, there was no correlation between speech rate and age (P > 0.05).

Conclusions: According to the preliminary outcomes, the increased rate of speech may be a contributing factor to dysphonia. Additional research is required to clarify the role of speech rate in clinical settings.