ARCHIEVE

Resonance is the condition in which sound vibrates evenly in the oral, nasal, and pharyngeal spaces during speech. Resonance disorder can be described as the failure of the sound to vibrate evenly in the oral, nasal, and pharyngeal spaces. Fistula, large adenoids, nasal polyp or velopharyngeal closure problems can cause resonance disorders. Resonance disorders frequently accompany speech disorders such as cleft palate, hearing loss, dysarthria, and apraxia. There are different types of resonance disorders. Hypernasality is one of the most common resonance disorders. Hyponasality, Cul-de-sac and Mixed types of resonance are other resonance disorders. Nasometer is one of the most commonly used methods in the evaluation of resonance disorders. Nasometer, developed based on advanced computer technology, calculates the Oral-Nasal Acoustic Ratio. Norm data have an important role in the evaluation of resonance disorders. Evaluating resonance disturbances in comparison with the norm data allows specialists to make more precise decisions. Purpose: The main purpose of this study was to establish the norm values of school-age children in Turkish aged between 8-11, based on the nasality scores obtained from the nasometer. Another purpose of the study was to reveal the difference between texts according to nasality scores. The study also aims to examine the effects of age, gender, and economic income level variables on nasometric norm values. Method: A total of 129 children, including 57 girls and 72 boys, aged between 8 - 11 years, and without any language, speech, and hearing problems, were included in the study. The participants were divided into four groups, namely 8, 9, 10, and 11 years-of-age. There were 23 participants at the age of 8, 36 participants at the age of 9, 36 participants at the age of 10, and 34 participants at the age of 11. The data in the study was obtained using the Nasometer II (model 6400) as the participants read oral, oronasal, and nasal readings texts. Of the consonants in the oral text, 24,21% were plosives 37,66% were fricatives, 4,03% were affricates, 6,27% were approximants, 9,41% were lateral approximants and 18,38% were voiced sounds. The rate of open vowels in the text was 62,57%, and the rate of closed vowels was 37,42%. The oronasal reading text had plosive sounds at a rate of 32,96%, fricative sounds at a rate of 15,64%, affricate sounds at a rate of 3,91%, approximant sounds at a rate of 6,14%, lateral approximant sounds at a rate of 9,49%, voiced sounds at a rate of 14,52%, and nasal sounds at a rate of 17,31%. The ratio of open vowels in the text was calculated as 5,44%, while the ratio of closed vowels was 42,55%. The ratio of mean nasal sounds in the nasal reading text was 58,62%. Results: Nasometric values increased as the ratio of nasal sounds in texts increased. The nasal scores obtained from the nasal reading text were higher than the scores obtained from the oral and oronasal texts, while the nasal scores obtained from the oronasal text were higher than the scores obtained from the oral text. Gender factor was effective in the oral text. Data obtained from oral text revealed that boys had higher scores than girls. An increase in nasal scores was seen with increasing age. The age variable appeared to influence oronasal and nasal readings. In the oronasal text, 10 and 11-year-old children had higher nasal scores compared to 8-year-old children. In the reading of the nasal text, 10 and 11-year-old children had higher nasal scores compared to 8 and 9-year old children. There was no significant relationship between economic income level and nasometric scores. Conclusion: The data obtained by this study provides important advantages to the specialists working in the field of resonance disorders. Specialists will be able to make more accurate decisions about resonance disorder by analyzing the norm values.

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