Acoustic analyses of speech naturalness: a comparison between two therapeutic approaches.

BACKGROUND

acoustic analyses of speech naturalness.

AIM: to use voice onset time (VOT) measure as a parameter of speech naturalness, comparing the outcome of two stuttering treatment procedures.

METHOD: 12 adult stutterers were divided in two groups and submitted to the same Fluency Promotion Program (FPF). For GI: surface electromyography (EMG) was used as biofeedback.

RESULTS

the results indicate that for GI 50% of the participants presented a more natural sounding speech after the FPF, whereas for GII only 17% of the participants demonstrated adequate speech naturalness in the same period.

CONCLUSION

although the number of participants of this research was small, the association of EMG to a FPP seems to produce a more natural sounding speech.