Abstract
Objectives
This study was undertaken (1) to obtain nasalance statistics for 152 Spanish-speaking normal males and females In three age groups (young children, older children, and adults) from two cities In central Mexico, (2) to determine the reliability of nasalance statistics, and (3) to test whether cities, age group, and/or gender significantly affected nasalance scores.
Design/Participants
Randomly selected volunteers, screened for normal speech and hearing, in two middle-class neighborhoods in each city particlpated.
Settings
Measures were made in private homes.
Measures
Eight nasalance measures were obtained: means, “deviations,” maxima, and minima for two sets of sentences; one set that contained no nasals (NN); and another set that included sentences containing several words with nasal sounds (N).
Results
Reliability (Cronbach's alpha) of the measures was demonstrated to be very high (0.87 to 0.95). Eight multivariate analyses of variance, one for each type of measure, were performed. Significant differences among subgroups were limited to four: (1) cities differed in their NN means, (2) age groups differed in their NN minima, (3) cities differed in their N minima, and (4) genders differed in their N minima. (Bonferroni adjusted alphas = 0.05).
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