title: Severity of voice disorders in children: correlations between perceptual and acoustic data.
abstract: OBJECTIVE
  The aims of this study were to verify whether there is correlation between perceptual and acoustic data and to verify which measures are useful to identify the severity of voice deviation in children.
  
  
  METHODS
  The participants were 71 children aged 3-9 years. The severity of voice deviation, roughness, breathiness, strain, and instability was evaluated by three speech therapists, experts on perceptual voice evaluation. A visual analog scale was used; speech material consisted of a sustained vowel sound /ε/ and the counting of numbers from one to 10. The means and standard deviations of fundamental frequency (F(0)), jitter, shimmer, and glottal-to-noise excitation (GNE) ratio were extracted from the sustained vowel, and the mean and variability of F(0) were extracted from automatic speech (counting). Perceptual and acoustic data were correlated.
  
  
  RESULTS
  Most children had mild voice deviation, with strain, instability, and breathiness as predominant voice qualities. F(0) measures correlate with strain to phonate. Shimmer and GNE correlate with general degree of voice deviation and with the roughness, breathiness, and instability parameters. GNE and F(0) mean in connected speech were the only measures that distinguished voices regarding severity of voice deviation.
  
  
  CONCLUSIONS
  There was a correlation between perceptual and acoustic measures from these children's voices. Children with high-pitched voices had higher voice deviations. GNE is a measure that reliably distinguishes the severity of voice deviation and may be useful in the screening and evaluation of children's voices.
authors.affiliation: Department of Speech and Language Pathology, Universidade Federal da Paraíba, João Pessoa, Brazil. lwlopes@hotmail.com
authors.forename: Leonardo Wanderley
authors.initials: LW
authors.lastname: Lopes
authors.forename: Ivonaldo Leidson
authors.initials: IL
authors.lastname: Barbosa Lima
authors.forename: Larissa Nadjara
authors.initials: LN
authors.lastname: Alves Almeida
authors.forename: Débora Pontes
authors.initials: DP
authors.lastname: Cavalcante
authors.forename: Anna Alice Figueirêdo
authors.initials: AA
authors.lastname: de Almeida
mesh_terms: D000162:Acoustics; D000367:Age Factors; D002648:Child; D002675:Child, Preschool; D003430:Cross-Sectional Studies; D005260:Female; D006801:Humans; D008297:Male; D011237:Predictive Value of Tests; D012720:Severity of Illness Index; D013061:Speech Acoustics; D013067:Speech Perception; D013068:Speech Production Measurement; D013997:Time Factors; D014832:Voice Disorders / Q000175:diagnosis* / Q000503:physiopathology / Q000523:psychology; D014833:Voice Quality