Analyse Acoustic Parameters Of Adult Voice By Praat

Objective: Using the Praat acoustics program to explore the characteristic of adult voice in different age- bracket and sex of adults and examine whether can clinically distinguish pathological voice from healthy voice differently.Method: Use the Praat to analyse acoustic parameters of 258 healthy adult and 19 female vocal nodule patients.Compare the acoustic analysis results of 19 female vocal nodule patients with age and sex matched 116 normal female volunteers((mean age 30.95, range 20–49).The objective acoustic parameters,including Jitter, Shimmer, fundamental frequency, and Hamonics-to-Noise Ratio(HNR), and compare the 4 parameters of different groups divided according to one,s age,sex.Result:The result show that the fundamental frequency(F0) has difference between the age group of 20-39 years and 50-59 years is significant, also between the age group of 40-49 years and 50-59 years. There is no statistical difference between the age group of 20-39 years and 40-49 years .The result show that the fundamental frequency(F0) between two sexs are statistically different.We also find that F0 rise in old man but decrease significantly in old woman. Jitter has no statistical difference between two sexs as well as different age groups. Shimmer of the age group of 20-39 years and 40-49 years has statistical difference between two sexs, but the shimmer of the age group of 50-59 years has no statistical difference between two sexs .Result show that HNR of female has statistical difference between different age groups ,while HNR of male is independent of age. Comparison of acoustic analysis results of female vocal nodule patients with their age and sex matched control groups revealed statistically significant difference in jitter and F0 ,there is no statistical difference between two groups in shimmer and HNR.Conclusion:1.The fundamental frequency(F0) between two sexs are statistically different, F0 rise in old man but decrease significantly in old woman. 2.The jitter has no statistical difference between two sexs,the jitter and F0 of vocal nodule patients is higher than the healthy female. The Praat software can be as a tool to analyse the acoustic parameters, to initiate taking muti-parameters samples and using different normal reference value and multi-parameters analysis according to the difference of age-bracket,sex in the adult.