Nasalance scores for typical Irish English-speaking adults

Abstract

The aim was to establish normative nasalance values for Irish English-speaking adults. Thirty men and 30 women with normal resonance read aloud 16 sentences from the Irish nasality assessment protocol, the Zoo passage, and the Rainbow passage. The speech samples were recorded using the Nasometer II 6400. Results of a mixed between–within subjects ANOVA indicated no significant gender effect on nasalance scores. The speakers showed significantly higher nasalance scores for high-pressure consonant sentences than low-pressure consonant sentences, and for the Rainbow passage than total test sentences. There was no significant difference between high-pressure consonant sentences and the Zoo passage. Compared to previous studies, the Irish young adults had lower nasalance scores than Irish children and than young adults with North American dialects.

Key words::

• Gender effect
• Irish English
• nasalance
• Nasometer
• normal adults
• resonance

Acknowledgements

The authors would like to thank the speakers for their participation, Professor Tara L. Whitehill for her invaluable comments on an earlier version of the manuscript, and the anonymous reviewers for their useful suggestions. Part of the study was presented at the American Speech-Language-Hearing Association (ASHA) Convention, Chicago, USA, 21 November 2008.

Declaration of interest: The authors declare no conflicts of interest. The authors are responsible for the data collection and preparation of the manuscript.

Notice of Correction

The version of this article published online ahead of print on 14 May 2012 was missing the acknowledgement section. The error has been corrected for this version.