Nasalance Scores for Normal-Speaking Turkish Population

Abstract

Objective: Obtain normative nasalance scores for adult and children subjects speaking Turkish language, and obtain a reference for normality when nasality is evaluated. Method: Mean nasalance scores were obtained from 35 normal-speaking children and 125 adults during the repetition of 3 passages that were categorized according to the amount of nasal consonants (oral, oro-nasal, and nasal passages). The Nasometer (model 6200) was used to obtain nasalance scores for the three reading passages. Results: Group mean ± standard deviation nasalance scores of children for oral passage, oronasal passage, and nasal passage were 15.23 ± 4.87, 37.69 ± 4.42, and 49.00 ± 6.99, respectively. Nasalance scores for the adult group were 15.77 ± 13.15, 38.46 ± 11.11, and 49.49 ± 10.28, respectively. There were significant differences in mean nasalance scores for oral versus nasal materials both for children and adult groups. Conclusion: The present study provides normative nasalance scores for Turkish-speaking children and adults. The results indicated acceptable differentiation between oral and nasal materials.