Purpose: This study aims to investigate the effects of a 10-min vocal exertion task on voice and respiratory measures, to determine whether restorative strategies can mitigate these effects after cessation of exertion, and to assess whether these strategies continue to reduce these detrimental effects when vocal exertion is resumed. Method: A…

Purpose: A critical component to the development of any type of intervention to improve speech production in individuals with Parkinson's disease (PD) is a complete understanding of the speech impairments present at each stage of the disease and how these impairments change with disease progression. The purpose of this longitudinal study was to…

Purpose: The objective of the current study was to investigate the effects of age and vocal loading on the respiratory and laryngeal systems. Method: Fourteen younger (M = 20 years) and 13 older (M = 75 years) healthy individuals participated in a 40-min vocal loading challenge in the presence of 70-dB background noise. Respiratory kinematic and…

Purpose: This study evaluated the accuracy of respiratory calibration methods for estimating lung volume during speech breathing. Method: Respiratory kinematic data were acquired via inductance plethysmography in 32 young adults, 22 older adults, and 13 older adults with Parkinson's disease (PD). Raw rib cage (RC) and abdomen (AB) signals (V) were…

Purpose: The present study compared laryngeal aerodynamic function of healthy older adults (HOA) to adults with Parkinson's disease (PD) while speaking at a comfortable and increased vocal intensity. Method: Laryngeal aerodynamic measures (subglottal pressure, peak-to-peak flow, minimum flow, and open quotient [OQ]) were compared between HOAs and…

Purpose: To examine the effects of cognitive-linguistic deficits and respiratory physiologic changes on respiratory support for speech in individuals with Parkinson's disease (PD) using two speech tasks: reading and extemporaneous speech. Method: Five women with PD, 9 men with PD, and 14 age- and sex-matched control participants read a passage and…

Purpose: Outcomes from studying the coordinative relationship between respiratory and swallow subsystems are inconsistent for sequential swallows, and the lung volume at the initiation of sequential swallowing remains undefined. The first goal of this study was to quantify the lung volume at initiation of sequential swallowing ingestion cycles and…

Purpose: The present study examines the impact of typical aging and Parkinson's disease (PD) on the relationship among breath pausing, syntax, and punctuation. Method: Thirty young adults, 25 typically aging older adults, and 15 individuals with PD participated. Fifteen participants were age- and sex-matched to the individuals with PD.…

Purpose: This study examined the relationship between swallowing and lung volume initiation in healthy adults during single swallows of boluses differing in volume and consistency. Differences in lung volume according to respiratory phase surrounding the swallow were also assessed. Method: Nine men and 11 women between the ages of 19 and 28 years…

Purpose: This study examined the response of the respiratory system to 3 cues used to elicit increased vocal loudness to determine whether the effects of cueing, shown previously in sentence tasks, were present in connected speech tasks and to describe differences among tasks. Method: Fifteen young men and 15 young women produced a 2-paragraph…

Researchers have hypothesized that the respiratory and laryngeal speech subsystems would respond to an air pressure bleed, but these responses have not been empirically studied. The present study examined the nature of the responses of the respiratory and laryngeal subsystems to an air pressure bleed in order to provide information relevant to the…