| Abstract | Objective: This study aimed to examine the efficacy of the Sob Voice Therapy program (SVT) on some acoustic measures reflecting pitch and voice quality in transgender male-to-female (MTF) speakers.
Methods: This was a retrospective data audit of 50 MTF speakers who were treated with SVT between 18/12/2014 and 20/12/2019. All speakers were treated using the Optimal Phonation Task (OPT), Sob Voice Quality (SVQ) and two common learning processes to support generalisation and maintenance of the new voice techniques, being task variation (Sob Variant, SV) and negative practice (NP). The mean age of the patients was 32.9 years (standard deviation = 14.4; range = 15 to 65). The post-treatment timepoints under review were post-OPT (n = 42), post-Sob (n = 36), and post-SV (n = 18). NP was not included in statistical analysis due to small sample size (n = 8). Acoustic analysis programs Praat and Analysis of Dysphonia in Speech and Voice (ADSV) were used to analyse voice tasks of prolonged /ɑ/ vowel, the 3rd CAPE-V phrase (CAPE-V3) and Rainbow Passage (RP) readings. Acoustic outcomes included fundamental frequency (F0), F0 standard deviation (F0SD), harmonics-to-noise ratio (HNR), cepstral peak prominence (CPPp from Praat and CPPadsv from ADSV), and Cepstral/Spectral Index of Dysphonia (CSID). Data were statistically analysed using linear mixed model.
Results: Data were reviewed for acoustic measures of pitch (F0 and F0SD) and voice quality (HNR, CPP, and CSID). For pitch measures, significant fixed effects were found for F0 of CAPE-V3 and RP: F0 significantly increased at SV compared with baseline with moderate effect size. For voice quality measures, post-SV, there were significant fixed effects of treatment on HNR, CPPadsv of CAPE-V3, and CPPp of all vocal tasks. There was no significant fixed effect of treatment on CSID of all vocal tasks (vowel, CAPE-V3, and RP; p > 0.05). Of those who completed NP, the majority showed positive F0 gain for both CAPE-V3 and Rainbow Passage.
Conclusion: The Sob Voice Therapy program was effective in increasing vocal pitch for the MTF transgender speakers. Acoustic voice quality measures representing noise (HNR) signal periodicity (CPP) were also improved post-treatment. Findings implied that SVT may be an effective voice therapy method for M-F transgendered speakers.
|
|---|