This Perspectives activity highlights two articles with objective measures for both evaluation and treatment of velopharyngeal dysfunction. The first article discusses the palatal closure efficiency (PaCE) index. This is an aerodynamic tool used to estimate the velopharyngeal opening during certain speech contexts. This is done by measuring a percentage of change between nasal and oral cognates of an individual. The second article describes the nasometer in depth, highlighting its use as an evaluation and treatment tool for decreasing hypernasality. It goes into further detail on the differences between hypernasality and measured nasalance, highlighting both strengths and limitations of the nasalance score.

Learning Outcomes
You will be able to:

• summarize how the PaCE index uses velopharyngeal (VP) area measurements to describe closure efficiency and the advantages of the PaCE index relative to interpreting pressure-flow findings
• describe the interpretation, benefits, and limitations of nasalance scores

Assessment Type
Self-assessment—Think about what you learned and report on the Completion Form how you will use your new knowledge.

Articles in This Course

1. The Palatal Closure Efficiency Index: A New Speaker-Centered Aerodynamic Metric for the Evaluation of Velopharyngeal Function During Speech by David J. Zajac, Juliana Powell, and Laura Perotta, published in SIG 5, Volume 6, Issue 2, April 28, 2021
2. The Use of the Nasometer and Interpretation of Nasalance Scores by Thomas Watterson, published in SIG 5, Volume 5, Issue 1, February 21, 2020