Keywords

Speech, voice, age, families, semitone standard deviation, cepstral peak prominence, healthy speakers

Abstract

Purpose

This study examined differences in selected acoustic measures of speech and voice according to age and sex and across families.

Method

Participants included 169 individuals, 79 men and 90 women, from 18 families, ranging in age from 17 to 87 years. Participants reported no history of articulation disorders, stroke or active neurologic disease, or severe-to-profound hearing loss. They read aloud two passages to facilitate examination of the following speech and voice acoustic parameters: fricative spectral moments (center of gravity, standard deviation, skewness, and kurtosis), the proportion of time spent speaking, mean speaking fundamental frequency, semitone standard deviation (STSD), and cepstral peak prominence smoothed.

Results

The results indicated a significant age effect for fricative spectral center of gravity, spectral skewness, and speaking STSD. There was a significant sex effect for spectral center of gravity, spectral kurtosis, and mean fundamental frequency. Familial relationship was significant for spectral skewness, STSD, and cepstral peak prominence smoothed.

Conclusions

These findings revealed that certain speech and voice features change with age and some change differently for men and women. Additionally, speakers from the same family units may demonstrate similar patterns for prosody, voicing, and articulatory behavior. The results also demonstrated normal differences in speech and voice variation across age, sex, and family unit. Understanding patterns and differences across these demographic variables in healthy speakers is important to distinguishing more confidently between normal and disordered speech and voice patterns clinically.

Original Publication Citation

Taylor, S., Dromey, C., Nissen, S.L., Tanner, K., Eggett, D. & Corbin-Lewis, K. (2020). Age- related changes in speech and voice: Spectral and cepstral measures. Journal of Speech, Language, and Hearing Research, 63, 647-660.

Document Type

Peer-Reviewed Article

Publication Date

2020

Publisher

Journal of Speech, Language, and Hearing Research

Language

English

College

David O. McKay School of Education

Department

Communication Disorders

University Standing at Time of Publication

Full Professor

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