Acoustic Characteristics Analysis of Chinese Vowels Produced by Tracheoesophageal Speaker

Abstract

Total laryngectomy is often the treatment of choice for some laryngeal cancers. Tracheoesophageal (TE) speech has been the current preferred treatment for speech rehabilitation following total laryngectomy, but due to the lack of objective evaluation criteria, it is tough to operate a qualitative analysis on the effects of postoperative speech rehabilitation. The present paper advanced an objective evaluation system involving acoustic characteristics parameters such as fundamental frequency, formants, jitter, shimmer, harmonics to noise ratio(HNR), the maximum phonation time(MPT), sound intensity and so on. An experiment result with seventeen TE and twenty normal speaks showed that compared to subjective evaluation system, the application of objective evaluation system evaluated the effects of speech rehabilitation after total laryngectomy more objectively and precisely.