Breath groups and fluency in spontaneous speech after a total laryngectomy
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2024-05-30
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en
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The main research question is “For tracheoesophageal speakers, what is the effect of the total laryngectomy on breath groups and fluency compared to a control group?” This question was investigated by looking at words and syllables in breath groups and the fluency of the speech (the interject ‘eh’, stutters and repetitions, also known as ‘mazes’).
Sixteen patients who underwent a total laryngectomy and sixteen control patients matched on age, sex and education were selected for this study. The participants were presented two short Looney Tunes videos and were asked to give a summary. Then they were given the Cookie Theft task and all patients were asked to explain what they saw. All speech was annotated and analysed and statistical linear regression analyses were performed to find statistically significant differences between the two groups. The TL group spoke statistically significantly fewer words in total, and statistically significantly fewer syllables and words per breath group compared to the Control group. The TL group was more fluent than the Control group regarding the interjection ‘eh’, possibly due to better planning abilities of the TL participants.
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