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Aims: To investigate the association between stuttering during adolescence and the onset of dysglycemia (prediabetes or type 2 diabetes) in early adulthood among men and women. Materials and Methods: This cohort study included Maccabi Health Services members assessed for mandatory military service at ages 16–19 during 1990–2019 and followed until 31 December 2020. Stuttering status was recorded in the baseline medical evaluation. Incident cases of dysglycemia were identified systematically using prediabetes and diabetes registries. Cox proportional hazard models were applied for men and women separately, adjusting for sociodemographics and medical status. Results: The study cohort comprised 866,304 individuals (55% men; 0.21% with stuttering) followed for a total of 12,696,250 person‐years. During the study period, 7.6% (n = 36,603) of men and 9.0% (n = 34,723) of women were diagnosed with dysglycemia. The mean ages at diagnosis were 34 and 32 years for men and women, respectively. Women with stuttering exhibited the highest dysglycemia incidence rate (102.3 per 10,000 person‐years) compared with the other groups (61.4, 69.0, and 51.9 per 10,000 person‐years for women without stuttering, men with stuttering, and men without stuttering, respectively). For both men and women, those with stuttering showed an increased risk of being diagnosed with dysglycemia compared with those without (adjusted hazard ratios 1.18 [1.01–1.38] and 1.61 [1.15–2.26], respectively). The associations persisted in extensive sub‐analyses. Conclusions: Stuttering in adolescence is associated with a higher risk of dysglycemia in early adulthood for men and women. Screening and targeted prevention in this population, especially women, may be beneficial. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This study aimed to quantify articulation rate among Hebrew speaking children and adolescents across a wide age range, and to assess whether age-related differences vary according to metric. One hundred and forty children, in seven age groups, participated in this cross-sectional study. All children were recorded during conversation and a picture description task, and articulation rate was measured using three metrics: word per minute (WPM), syllable per second (SPS) and phone per second (PPS). A significant increase in articulation rate was observed with age. Rate measurements during conversation were significantly faster than in picture description, and no gender differences were found. In general, the SPS and PPS metrics yielded equivalent results, which were different from those obtained with the WPM metric. Articulation rate among normally fluent children and adolescents increased with age. Furthermore, an increase in rate was evident after the age of 13 years. (Contains 3 tables and 1 figure.)

Arousing and processing primary vulnerable emotions is a core change mechanism across a wide range of psychotherapies and clinical populations. This study examined the utility of 2 emotion-focused interventions--relational reframes and empty-chair enactments--in terms of arousing primary sadness associated with loss and longing among individuals suffering from unresolved anger. Twenty-nine women reporting unresolved anger underwent a single, analogue emotion-focused therapy session comprised of empathy, relational reframe, and empty-chair interventions. The arousal of sadness was measured with voice signal, voice quality, and speech fluency measures. Results indicated that both relational reframe and empty-chair interventions led to increased arousal of sadness relative to baseline nonemotional speech. Empty-chair interventions also led to increases in fear/anxiety, presumably due to the potential for rejection or attack by the significant other (i.e., attachment figure). Treatment implications are discussed. (Contains 1 footnote and 2 tables.)

The authors conducted 2 studies to identify the vocal acoustical correlates of unresolved anger and sadness among women reporting unresolved anger toward an attachment figure. In Study 1, participants (N = 17) were induced to experience and express anger then sadness or sadness then anger. In Study 2, a 2nd group of participants (N = 22) underwent a relationship-oriented, emotion-focused analogue therapy session. Results from both studies showed that, relative to emotionally neutral speech, anger evoked an increase in articulation rate and in mean fundamental frequency (F0) and F0-range, whereas sadness evoked an increase in F0-perturbation. Both F0 and F0-range were larger for anger than for sadness. In addition, results from the mood-induction-procedure study revealed 2 Emotion x Order interactions. Whereas variations in amplitude range suggested that anger evoked less physiological activation when induced after sadness, variations in F0-perturbation suggested that sadness evoked more physiological activation when induced after anger. These findings illustrate the feasibility of using acoustical measures to identify clients' personally and clinically meaningful emotional experiences, and shifts between such emotional experiences, in the context of psychotherapy. (Contains 5 tables and 2 figures.)

Purpose: Two studies are presented here. Study 1 was aimed at evaluating whether the voice characteristics of women who use birth control pills that contain different progestins differ from the voice characteristics of a control group. Study 2 presents a meta-analysis that combined the results of Study 1 with those from 3 recent studies that compared voices of women who use and do not use birth control pills. Method: In Study 1, voice samples from 30 women with no history of voice training, who use pills with different progestins (drospirenone, desogestrel, gestodene), and 10 women who do not use the pill were recorded at specific time points across the menstrual cycle and were analyzed acoustically. In Study 2, results from Study 1 were analyzed jointly with results from three recent studies, which used similar methodologies. Results: Results of Study 1 did not reveal acoustic differences in sustained phonation of vowels across the pill groups and controls. Results of the meta-analysis performed in Study 2 indicated that pill users exhibited lower jitter and shimmer values on sustained vowels, whereas no difference of fundamental frequency was observed among women who use the pill. Conclusions: These results support findings from previous studies, which suggested that no adverse effect on voice was detected among nonprofessional speakers who use new-generation monophasic birth control pills, for the measures studied. Furthermore, results of the meta-analysis suggested that some acoustic properties of the voice, which are reflected in perturbation measures in sustained vowels, may be improved among women who use the pill.

Various speech and voice disorders affect 70% to 85% of individuals with Parkinson's disease (PD). Speech treatment is generally conducted on an individual basis, with family member involvement. Clinical experience indicates that many patients do not practice treatments at home or apply the learned techniques in everyday situations. An eight-session, task-oriented group intervention with PD patients who also had learned speech techniques individually prior to this program is described. Preliminary observations using subjective and objective measures indicate improvement in voice characteristics, self-perception of speech intelligibility, communication skills, and application of these skills in everyday communication situations.

A study investigated frequency change and duration of the second formant (F2) transition in speech samples recorded close to stuttering onset in 10 preschoolers who stutter, 10 who recovered from stuttering, and 10 controls. Near stuttering onset, children whose stuttering persisted demonstrated significantly smaller frequency change than the recovery group. (Contains references.) (Author/CR)

Conversational speech of five children who stutter was recorded and then portions manipulated to modify interval duration and vowel duration. Results indicated that both interval and vowel durations moderately affected listeners' perception of stuttering. Generally, repetitions with short vowel and interval durations were judged as more representative of stuttering. (Contains references.) (Author/DB)

Identified the acoustic features of the vowels produced by Hebrew speakers differing in age and sex. Ninety speakers were recorded. Vowels were presented in a nonword context that was placed in a meaningful Hebrew sentence. Results are discussed. (Author/VWL)

This investigation compared changes in articulatory rate over a period of 2 years in subgroups of preschool children who stutter (either persistently or who recovered without intervention) and normally fluent children. Results indicated no significant differences among the three groups when articulation rate was measured in syllables per second, although group differences were found when comparing phones per second. (Author/DB)

To link to full-text access for this article, visit this link: http://dx.doi.org/10.1016/j.jvoice.2005.08.006 Byline: Ofer Amir (a), Odelia Ashkenazi (a), Tali Leibovitzh (a), Orit Michael (a), Yael Tavor (a), Michael Wolf (a)(a ) Abstract: Objective: To evaluate a translated version of the Voice Handicap Index (VHI) as a diagnostic tool for people with and without a laryngeal pathology, among Hebrew speakers. Study Design: Parallel group design. Methods: The VHI was translated and adapted to Hebrew. The translated version was, then, administered to a group of 182 patients with various laryngeal pathologies and a control group of 171 people with no laryngeal pathology. Based on the participants' responses to the VHI, statistical analyses were, initially, performed to assess validity and reliability, and then to evaluate group differences between the pathological and control groups and among the different pathological groups included in the study. Results: Statistical analyses showed high reliability values of the Hebrew version of the VHI (overall Cronbach's alpha r = 0.976). Participants' scores were not affected by their age (P = 0.156) or gender (P = 0.261). The participants in the control group obtained significantly lower scores on the overall VHI score, as well as on all three subscale scores, in comparison with the pathological group (P < 0.001). In addition, within the pathological group, patients with neurogenic pathologies received higher scores than all other pathological groups, whereas patients with laryngeal inflammation received lower scores than all other pathological groups (P < 0.05). Conclusion: The VHI is a powerful tool for quantifying patients' perceptions of their voice handicaps, and it maintained its power across translation. The VHI was shown to be valuable for the assessment of speakers with, as well as without laryngeal pathologies. Author Affiliation: (a) From the Department of Communication Disorders, Sackler School of Medicine, Tel-Aviv University, Tel Aviv, Israel (a ) Department of Otorhinolaryngology, Head and Neck Surgery, The Sheba Medical Center, Tel-Hashomer, Tel-Aviv, Israel Article History: Accepted 20 August 2005 Article Note: (footnote) Supported by the Tel-Aviv University Internal Fund; PI: Ofer Amir.

Summary: Vocal warmup is generally accepted as vital for singing performance. However, only a limited number of studies have evaluated this effect quantitatively. In this study, we evaluated the effect [...]

Summary: Most studies investigating the effect of sex hormones on the larynx and vocal folds focused on the voice quality of women either around menopause or during the menstrual cycle. [...]

Predicting the trajectories of alliance formation that the patient is likely to establish with the therapist during treatment, even before their first meeting, can help prevent the potentially harmful consequences of deterioration in alliance, such as poor outcome and premature dropout. The present study aimed to examine the ability of four pretreatment acoustic markers to predict the alliance that is likely to be formed in the course of treatment: F0 span, speech rate, pause proportion and jitter. Data from 560 observations of 38 patients were collected as part of an ongoing randomized clinical trial of short‐term psychotherapy for major depressive disorder. The acoustic markers were measured using high‐quality recordings at baseline, before the patient and therapist ever met or had any type of communication. A multilevel model was used to examine the ability of the four acoustic markers to predict the slopes of alliance formation in the course of treatment, all markers being introduced in the same model. The clinical utility of the acoustic markers was explored in two case studies. The model explained 22% of the variance in alliance formation. Higher levels of both jitter and pause proportion at baseline predicted less strengthening of the alliance in the course of treatment. The findings, which should be replicated in larger samples, suggest that much of the therapeutic alliance can be predicted based on the acoustic characteristics of the patient's voice in the first 3 min of their intake, before they even meet their therapist. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Background: Transgender women may experience gender-dysphoria associated with their voice and the way it is perceived. Previous studies have shown that specific acoustic measures are associated with the perception of voice-femininity and with voice-related quality-oflife, yet results are inconsistent. Aims: This study aimed to examine the associations between specific voice measures of transgender women, voice-related quality-of-life, and the perception of voice-femininity by listeners and by the speakers themselves. Methods: Thirty Hebrew speaking transgender women were recorded. They had also rated their voice-femininity and completed the Hebrew version of the TVQMtF questionnaire. Recordings were analyzed to extract mean fundamental frequency (F0), formant frequencies (F1, F2, F3), and vocal-range (calculated in Hz. and in semitones). Recordings were also rated on a voice-gender 7-point scale, by 20 naïve cisgender listeners. Results: Significant correlations were found between both F0 and F1 and listeners' as well as speakers' evaluation of voice-femininity. TVQMtF scores were significantly correlated with F0 and with the lower and upper boundaries of the vocal-range. Voice-femininity ratings were strongly correlated with vocal-range, when calculated in Hz, but not when defined in semitones. Listeners' evaluation and speakers' self-evaluation of voice-femininity were significantly correlated. However, TVQMtF scores were significantly correlated only with the speakers' voice-femininity ratings, but not with those of the listeners. Conclusion: Higher F0 and F1, which are perceived as more feminine, jointly improved speakers' satisfaction with their voice. Speakers' self-evaluation of voice-femininity does not mirror listeners' judgment, as it is affected by additional factors, related to self-satisfaction and personal experience. Combining listeners' and speakers' voice evaluation with acoustic analysis is valuable by providing a more holistic view on how transgender women feel about their voice and how it is perceived by listeners. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]