Pre-course assignments

A good start is half the battle!

Submersion in the literature of clinical voice acoustics

Before proceeding, be aware that the manuscripts that can be downloaded from this webpage are copyrighted and not for further dissemination. They are relevant to the topic of clinical assessment of acoustic voice signals and serve as background information and preparation to Phonanium’s CAAVS courses. Click on ‘Full text’ to read and/or download the entire article.

  1. Introduction // Practical acoustics in clinical voice assessment: a Praat primer (Maryn, 2017).
    > Published in Perspectives of the ASHA Special Interest Groups
    > DOI: https://doi.org/10.1044/persp2.SIG3.14
    > Full text
  2. Room acoustics // Mobile communication devices, ambient noise, and acoustic voice measures (Maryn et al., 2017).
    > Published in Journal of Voice
    > DOI: https://doi.org/10.1016/j.jvoice.2016.07.023
    > Full text
  3. Calibration // Calibration of clinical audio recording and analysis systems for sound intensity measurement (Maryn & Zarowski, 2015).
    > Published in American Journal of Speech-Language Pathology
    > DOI: https://doi.org/10.1044/2015_AJSLP-14-0082
    > Full text
  4. Variability // Perturbation measures of voice: a comparative study between Multi-Dimensional Voice Program and Praat (Maryn et al., 2009).
    > Published in Folia Phoniatrica et Logopaedica
    > DOI: https://doi.org/10.1159/000227999
    > Full text
  5. Speech tasks // Sustained vowels and continuous speech in the auditory-perceptual evaluation of dysphonia severity (Maryn & Roy, 2012).
    > Published in Jornal da Sociedade Brasileira Fonoaudiologia
    > DOI: https://doi.org/10.1590/S2179-64912012000200003
    > Full text
  6. Validity // Acoustic measurement of overall voice quality: a meta-analysis (Maryn et al., 2009).
    > Published in Journal of the Acoustical Society of America
    > DOI: https://doi.org/10.1121/1.3224706
    > Full text
  7. Norm-references // A case of specificity: how does the acoustic voice quality index perform in normophonic subjects? (Batthyany et al., 2019).
    > Published in Applied Sciences
    > DOI: https://doi.org/10.3390/app9122527
    > Full text
  8. AVQI v.1 // Toward improved ecological validity in the acoustic measurement of overall voice quality: combining continuous speech and sustained vowels (Maryn et al., 2010).
    > Published in Journal of Voice
    > DOI: https://doi.org/10.1016/j.jvoice.2008.12.014
    > Full text
  9. AVQI v.2 // Objective dysphonia measures in the program Praat: Smoothed Cepstral Peak Prominence and Acoustic Voice Quality Index (Maryn & Weenink, 2015).
    > Published in Journal of Voice
    > DOI: DOI:https://doi.org/10.1016/j.jvoice.2014.06.015
    > Full text
  10. DSI v.2 // Measuring the Dysphonia Severity Index (DSI) in the program Praat (Maryn et al., 2017).
    > Published in Journal of Voice
    > DOI: https://doi.org/10.1016/j.jvoice.2017.01.002
    > Full text

Speed-dating with the program Praat … exercises with some basic functions of the program Praat.

Praat (www.praat.org) is an incredibly useful computer program that you can use to record, save, edit and analyze acoustic voice and speech signals in the clinic. Next to for example speech synthesis, it also offers ways to draw numerical and graphical information on these signals.

To introduce you to the basic functions of Praat, to let you take some initial steps in this program, and to already have basic skills that simplify the use of Phonanium’s scripts/plugins, you are advised to do the exercises below. Please follow all steps in the exercises.

  1. Record sound, and rename, save and re-open objects
    > Click here
  2. Copy, listen to, downsample and re-listen to a sound object
    > Click here
  3. View a recording of a sustained vowel, analyze its medial 1 second on various voice characterstics, and extract this portion
    > Click here
  4. Analyzing sound objects: fO
    > Click here
  5. Analyzing sound objects: intensity
    > Click here
  6. Creating and analyzing a long-term average spectrum (LTAS)
    > Click here
  7. Create and inspect a narrowband and a broadband spectrogram
    > Click here
  8. Create and analyze a cepstrogram and a cepstrum
    > Click here
  9. Drawing graphs and analyses
    > Click here
  10. Erasing the Praat Picture window, adding data to graphs and copy/paste drawings
    > Click here
  11. Repetition
    > Click here