Welcome to the Vocal Tract Development Lab Community page. Here, we present Collections of outcomes from over two decades (1995-2022) of multidisciplinary research efforts on vocal tract development across the lifespan. The collections include deposits of our Publications, Supplemental Materials that include relevant anatomic and acoustic data and measurements, and Resources established.

The vocal tract is a set of three cavities – oral, pharyngeal, and nasal – involved in the formation of speech sounds. It also serves aerodigestive functions. Each of these cavities is formed by a combination of structures that are either soft (such as the tongue, soft palate and lips) or hard (jaw and hard palate). These cavities, and the vocal tract structures, have a complex growth pattern that is being increasingly understood through medical imaging methods such as MRI and CT. Our research focus was on developmental changes in the anatomy of structures that define the vocal tract, also the changes in its resonance as measured by speech/vowel acoustics.

To quantify the lifespan changes of the vocal tract anatomy in typically and atypically developing individuals, our Vocal Tract Development Laboratory used a combination of retrospective medical imaging studies and prospective acoustic recordings. The latter included speech recordings as well as acoustic pharyngometry, an acoustic reflectometer that uses sound echoes to measure the geometry of the upper airway (oral and pharyngeal cavities). Records/files specific to each of the three methodologies used are/will be deposited in the Supplemental Materials Collection and include data from typically developing individuals across the lifespan (birth to 92 years). Each deposit includes a readme.txt file that further clarifies its content: The anatomic/imaging records will provide 3D binary models of select structures, 3D landmarks, and 2D measurements of the vocal tract structures. The speech acoustics records include the waveforms of sound recordings of words, sentences, and vowels prolongations, as well as acoustic measurements of the extreme vowels. The acoustic pharyngometry records will include measurements of oral and pharyngeal cavities, including their length, volume, and cross-sectional area, using sound wave reflection technology.

Our Vocal Tract Development Lab team (PI: Houri K. Vorperian, Ph.D., CCC-SLP) is grateful for funding support from National Institute on Deafness and Other Communication Disorders (2000-2021) in conjunction with support from the Friends of the Waisman Center. The Collections offer resources aimed at further advancing our understanding of the nature of the lifespan changes of the vocal tract anatomy, speech acoustics, and anatomic-acoustic relations in typically developing individuals. They also provide normative data necessary for the study of atypical development.

The citation is specified in the readme.txt file.