Influence of Syllable Train Length and Performance End Effects on Phonation Threshold Pressure in Females

Abstract

Phonation threshold pressure (PTP) is the minimum amount of lung pressure necessary to initiate and sustain phonation. Phonation threshold pressure is useful in determining overall health of the vocal folds. The purpose of this study was to determine whether the number of syllables collected and/or performance end effects had a significant effect on PTP. Ten adult females with normal voices produced five and seven repetitions of the syllable /pi/ at three pitches. The results were analyzed to determine whether a difference existed in PTP when five versus seven repetitions were collected and whether the typically discarded first and last repetitions differed from the middle three. The results indicated there was no significant difference in PTP when five syllables were collected versus seven syllables or between the first and last repetitions and the middle repetitions. These findings are significant to developing a clinically standardized, effective, and efficient method for collecting PTP.