Pronunciation improvement for a patient with 3/ 4 glossectomy by maxillary plate insertion

With the object of rectifying pronunciation impediments in patients with 3/ 4 glossectomy, improvement was examined following maxillary plate insertion and investigated according to clarity of pronunciation, spectrogram, static paratogram and the ability to phonate.1) With the insertion of a maxillary plate we were able to obtain moderate clarity of pronunciation. The improvement seemed to be due to the following factors: A: the oral functional space, formed by maxillary plate insertion commonly called the resonance-chamber, matched well. B: phonic functions, such as expiratory flow, pressure, etcetera, had clearly improved. C: articulation positioning was constructed by the remaining tongue.2) Following maxillary plate insertion, excellent improvement was noted in the patient in the Japanese phonetic consonants, especially in bilabial-fricative (p, b), bilabial-nasal (m), bilabialfricative (f. w), alveolar-plosive (ts), alveolar-nasal (n), palato-fricative (c, j) and glottalplosive (h).3) Whether the maxillary plate was instered or not, the consonants (s, t, k) were mis-heard as (h).4) With the plate inserted, clarity in the pronunciation of vowels (a, i, us, e) resulted in absolute success.5) Again, as regards the Japnanese phonetic sounds, previous disturbance in the consonant along the vowel line, a-line, e-line and i-line definitely improved. Unfortunatly good results were not obtained in the u-line and o-line.6) In comparison to a normal woman's frequency the vowel formant from the spectrogram, whether the maxillary plate was inserted or not, in the 1st formant had a low frequency tendency and 2nd formant had a high frequency tendency.7) When the maxillary plate was removed the difference in the voice bar and spike fill were not present in the spectrogram when the patient attempted to pronounce consonant.8) The contact patterns of the static paratogram for alveolar and flapped sounds were indicated in the contact patterns of the static paratogram.9) Many patients with discordance or oral functional space caused by glossectomy, and unusally with severe speech impediment, were often neglected in the past. But now comprehension through studies of oral form and function to improve prosthodontic therapy such as the maxillary plate insertion that gives well-matched oral functional space, has and will continue to achieve remarkable results.