Valores de nasalancia para vocales, serie numérica y oraciones producidas por adultos hablantes de español chileno

Objective

The present study aimed to establish and compare nasalance scores in Spanish-speaking adults of both genders from Chile during the production of sustained vowels, an automatic speech sample and the reading of sentences.

Methods

46 adults participated, 25 women and 21 men, aged between 18 and 29 years. All without a history of speech therapy, neurological pathologies, intellectual deficit, hearing loss, syndromes or other pathologies that affect speech production. Adequate velopharyngeal function was determined in vivo through a perceptual evaluation of resonance. Nasalance was determined with the Nasometer, model 6450, during the sustained production of the vowels /a/, /i/ and /u/, an automatic repetition of the number series 1-10 and the reading of six sentences, five with consonants high pressure orals and one with nasal consonants. The comparison between both genders was made with the Mann-Whitney U test.

Results

The sentence with nasal sounds («Mi mamá me mima») presented the highest percentage of nasalance with 66.36%, followed by the numerical series with 24.61% and the vowel /i/ with 23.57%. Meanwhile, sentences with oral sounds and sustained vowels /a/ and /u/ presented an average nasalance that fluctuated between 10.5% (vowel /u/) and 16.52% (sentence: «Fifi fue feliz»). Finally, a significantly higher average was observed in women for three oral sentences: «Pipo patea la pelota» (P = .044), «Tito tapa tarros» (P = .041), and «Fifi fue feliz» (P = .027).

Conclusion

The nasalance values obtained in Chilean adults showed variations according to the speech stimulus and the gender of the speakers.