Nasometric Values for Normal Nasal Resonance in the Speech of Young Flemish Adults

Objective The purpose of this study was to obtain normative nasalance scores for adult subjects speaking the Flemish language. Additional objectives of the study were to determine if speaker sex played a role in differences in nasalance scores and if significantly different nasalance scores existed for Flemish compared with other languages or dialects. Design Nasalance scores were obtained while young Flemish adults read three standard nasalance passages. These passages were an oronasal passage (a text that contained the same approximate percentage of nasal consonants as found in the standard Dutch speech), an oral passage (a text that excluded nasal consonants), and a nasal passage (a reading text loaded with nasal consonants). Participants Subjects included 58 healthy young Flemish adults with normal oral and velopharyngeal structure and function, normal hearing levels, normal voice characteristics, and normal resonance and articulation skills. Methods The Nasometer (model 6200) was used to obtain nasalance scores for the three reading passages. These three reading passages were designed specifically for use with the nasometer. The nasalance data were analyzed for sex dependence, using Student's t test for each reading passage. This same test was used for comparison of our data with data of other languages. Results Normative nasalance data were obtained for the oronasal text (33.8%), the oral text (10.9%), and the nasal text (55.8%). Female speakers exhibited significantly higher nasalance scores than male speakers on the passages containing nasal consonants (normal text, p = .001; nasal text, p = .042). Furthermore, statistically significant cross-linguistic nasality differences were observed. The English and Spanish languages were found to have more nasalance than the Flemish language. For the North Dutch and Flemish languages, this cross-linguistic phenomenon was absent. Conclusion These normative nasalance scores for normal young adults speaking the Flemish language provide important reference information for Flemish cleft palate teams. Sex-related differences and cross-linguistic differences were shown.