Perceptual Evaluation of Velopharyngeal Competency

Abstract

Eight public school speech/language pathologists estimated velopharyngeal competence on the basis of perceptual evaluation of speech characteristics of 24 subjects. These evaluations were made from tape-recorded speech samples. After orientation to a system for scoring speech characteristics associated with velopharyngeal incompetence they reevaluated the same 24 subjects. The evaluations were found to improve significantly with orientation and to correlate well with experts' live evaluations as well as evaluations based on instrumentation which included telefluorography, manometric and pressure-flow data. It was concluded that speech/language pathologists, who by nature of their education and training have expertise in identification of speech deviations, can apply their skills effectively in identifying velopharyngeal incompetence. Further it was suggested that orientation to a system for weighing speech characteristics related to velopharyngeal competency can improve their estimates.