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Purpose: To investigate the ability of standard esophageal (SE) and tracheoesophageal (TE) speakers of Cantonese to differentiate between aspirated and unaspirated stops produced at 3 places of articulation were investigated. Method: Six Cantonese stops, /p, t, k, ph, th, kh/, followed by the vowel /a/ produced by 10 SE, TE, and normal laryngeal (NL) speakers were examined through perceptual tasks and voice onset time (VOT) analysis. Results: Perceptual experiments showed lower accuracy of identification of stops produced by SE and TE than by NL speakers, with mostly misidentification of aspirated stops as their unaspirated counterparts. Acoustic analysis revealed that aspirated stops produced by NL, SE, and TE speakers were associated with significantly longer VOT values than their unaspirated counterparts. Unaspirated velar stops showed significantly longer VOT than bilabial and alveolar stops in NL and SE speech. SE and TE speakers were still able to use VOT to signal aspiration contrast, but TE was unable to differentiate among different places of articulation. KEY WORDS: Cantonese, alaryngeal, voice onset time (VOT), stops, Total laryngectomy is a surgical procedure involving the removal of the entire larynx. It is a treatment method to remove the carcinoma in individuals with laryngeal cancer. After the surgery, [...]

This study examines oropharyngeal swallow disorders and measures of pharyngeal and laryngeal movement during deglutition from videofluorographic studies of oropharyngeal swallow in 9 patients who had undergone supraglottic laryngectomy and 9 age-matched normal subjects. The swallows of surgical patients were examined at 2 weeks and 3 months postoperatively. Two critical factors in recovery of swallowing were identified: (a) airway closure at the laryngeal entrance, that is, the space between the arytenoid cartilage and the base of the tongue, and (b) the movement of the tongue base to make complete contact with the posterior pharyngeal wall. When patients achieved these two functions, they returned to normal swallowing. The duration of tongue base contact to the posterior pharyngeal wall and extent of anterior movement of the arytenoid increased significantly from 2 weeks to 3 months in the surgical patients. At 2 weeks postsurgery, patients who had undergone supraglottic laryngectomy exhibited significantly shorter airway closure and tongue base to pharyngeal wall contact, reduced laryngeal elevation, increased width of cricopharyngeal (CP) opening, and later onset of airway closure and tongue base movement than normal subjects. These significant differences remained at 3 months postoperatively, although swallow measures were moving toward normal in the patients who had undergone supraglottic laryngectomy. Comparison of patients not eating at 2 weeks with patients at the time of first eating revealed significantly longer duration of tongue base contact to the pharyngeal wall, longer duration of airway closure, and greater movement of the arytenoid in patients who were eating. Results indicate that the focus of swallowing therapy after supraglottic laryngectomy should be on improvement of posterior movement of the tongue base and anterior tilting of the arytenoid to close the airway entrance and improve bolus propulsion (in the case of the tongue base). KEY WORDS: swallowing, supraglottic laryngectomy, videofluoroscopy, aspiration, airway closure

The intelligibility of esophageal speech has been shown to be significantly lower than that of normal laryngeal speech. The current study investigated the possibility of enhancing the intelligibility of esophageal speech by manipulating samples in the time domain. Specifically, injection noises and nonphrasal pauses were digitally edited from the speech samples of 5 esophageal talkers. Twenty-five sentences were selected and edited in the time domain and presented to 15 naive listeners who were instructed to write down the words that they heard. The percentage of correct words heard for each sentence was determined and compared across listeners, sentences, and talkers. The overall effect of the editing was a small but significant gain in the intelligibility of the esophageal speech. The improvement in intelligibility, however, depended on the individual talker, the speech material, and the number of editing changes made to a particular sample. KEY WORDS: voice, laryngectomy, esophageal speech, digital editing, intelligibility, It is obvious that laryngectomized patients must find alternative methods of applying voicing to their speech. The two most common methods of supplying the voiced energy required by speech in [...]