Indiana University-Purdue University Indianapolis (IUPUI) / This investigation examined the prevalence, relative magnitude, and
selected components of velar stretch in normal-speaking 8 and 10-year-old
children. For twenty 8-year-old and twenty 10-year-old children, lateral
cephalometric films were obtained under three conditions: (1) subject
at rest, (2) subject sustaining the vowel /u/, and (3) subject sustaining
the voiceless fricative /s/. The cephalometric films were traced on acetate
paper and specific radiographic measurements were made to describe
important facets of velar stretch in children.
Data were obtained on the resting length of the soft palate, the
antero-posterior depth of the pharynx, and the prevalence of velopharyngeal
closure and/or the degree of velopharyngeal opening observed during
selected speech utterances in normal-speaking 8 and 10-year-old children.
Such information is expected to be useful to dentists, speech pathologists,
and physicians who use lateral headplates to assess velopharyngeal
adequacy.
Velar stretch per se was not observed in all 40 normal-speaking
children. During the production of /u/, 36 children (90%) exhibited
velar stretch; for /s/, 32 children (80%) manifested stretch. Paired-
comparison t-test results showed that the length of the soft palate measured
during speech was significantly greater than its resting length in
both 8 and 10-year-old children. Moreover, significantly more total velar
stretch was found during the production of the vowel /u/ than during the
production of the consonant /s/ in both 8 and 10-year-old children. Although there was a significant increase in the length of the entire soft
palate during the functional activities of speech, no significant increase
in the anterior portion of the soft palate was associated with speech.
Analysis of variance techniques showed that 10-year-old children
exhibited significantly greater velar stretch during both /u/ and /s/
utterances than did 8-year-old children. In addition, 10-year-old children
exhibited significantly greater velar height and greater velar length
characteristics during both /u/ and /s/ utterances than did 8-year-old.
children. Correlation procedures were used to examine the relationships
between velar stretch and other commonly employed cephalometric measures.
These analyses indicated that although velar stretch was significantly
correlated with a number of commonly employed cephalometric measures,
the amount of velar stretch was not well predicted by any single cephalometric
measure used in this research.
| Identifer | oai:union.ndltd.org:IUPUI/oai:scholarworks.iupui.edu:1805/4372 |
| Date | January 1974 |
| Creators | Mourino, Arthur P. |
| Contributors | Roche, James R., Katz, Simon, 1920-1987, Bixler, David, Garner, La Forrest Dean, 1933- |
| Source Sets | Indiana University-Purdue University Indianapolis |
| Language | en_US |
| Detected Language | English |
| Type | Thesis |
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