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Purpose Semi-Occluded Vocal Tract Exercises (SOVTE) have been used frequently in the last decades. They are used by both clinicians and professional voice performers to increase voice quality. By vocal fold exercises, larengeal muscles can be strengthened and the air flow from the lungs, can be used more efficiently. These exercises lengthen phonation time, reduce involuntary pitch changes and help produce voice with minimum effort. Purpose of this study was to investigate the effect of the cup phonation exercise, a type of SOVTE, on vocal quality. Method: This study was designed as a single group, pre-test post-test pre-experimental model. The independent variable of the study was cup phonation, and the dependent variables were acoustics parameters, which were fundamental frequency, jitter, shimmer, soft phonation index (SPI), noise harmonic ratio (NHR), and s/z ratio measures. Participants of the study were 10 females and 10 males. The average age of the participants was 22.10, SD=1.11, with a range of 20- 25. None of the participants was a professional voice performer and none had any kind of voice disorder. Participation was voluntary. Research was conducted in the phoniatry unit of The Education, Research and Training Center for Speech and Language Pathology (DİLKOM) at Anadolu University. Acoustic parameters and s/z ratios were measured before and after the cup phonation exercises for each participant. Data was analyzed using SPSS, version 21. Comparisons were made of the pre- and post-measurements using Related Samples Wilcoxon-Signed Ranked Test.  Gender comparison were also made. Results: In order to compare pre-test and post-test  s/z ratio and acoustic parameter measurements of participants  Related Samples Wilcoxon-Signed Ranked Test was used. According to results of analysis, there was a significant difference between pre-test and post-test measurements of /s/ phonation (p = 0.01, p < .05) and s/z ratio (p = 0.007, p < .05). In other words, after cup phonation exercises participants’ phonation time of phoneme /s/ was significantly higher than before the exercise. Pre-test and post-test scores of /z/ phonation time did not differ significantly. Analysis of the acoustic parameters showed that there were no significant differences between pre-test and post-test measurements. Both female and male participants’ s/z ratios significantly differed after cup phonation exercises. Gender differences were compared using the Mann Whitney U Test. No significant gender differences were found. Conclusion: Results of the recent study show that /s/ phonation time and s/z ratio increase significantly after cup phonation exercises. Eckel and Boone (1981) claimed that s/z ratio can enable information about an existing pathology in vocal folds. Cup phonation results increasing of s/z ratio in a normal range which shows that after cup phonation people use their vocal folds more efficiently. Acoustic parameters do not differ significantly before and after exercises. This result is in line with the literature findings. In recent study participants did not have any voice disorder. SOVTE exercises have many variations, it is easy to implement and its positive effects are reported in different studies. Because of this characteristics usage of SOVTE by professional voice performers, clinicians and speech-language pathologists have increased in last decades. This study shows that cup phonation has positive effects especially on the respiratory system which is a sub-mechanism of voice production. It is suggested that a similar research can be conducted with participants who have voice disorders.

semi-occluded vocal tract exercises, cup phonation, acoustic parameters, s/z ratio, voice quality

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