Articulation Recovery on Patients Wearing Maxillary Prosthesis

Analysis of the Confusion Matrix by Articulation Test in Pronunciation

Abstract

The purpose of this study was to clarify the confusion matrix in pronunciation of patients wearing maxillary prosthesis. The subjects consisted of 28 patients with maxillary defects.The patients were classified acording to the HS system classifying the maxillary defect. Articulation tests in pronunciation were performed after placement of their maxillary prosthesis, and then the confusion matrix was analyzed in relation to the extent of maxillary defect.
The results were as follows.
1. The articulation score averaged 77.4%, however, the scores were lower in patients categorized as H 2 and H 4 than in patients categorized as H 1 and H 3.
2. In Japanese vowels, mishearing of/i/for/e/and vice versa was evident in the prosthesis wearing conditions.
3. The consonants which were analyzed according to the manner of articulation tended to take affricates for fricatives, rolled ones for plosives, and plosives for fricatives.
4. Which regard to the point of articulation, there were some tendencies to take palatals for alveolars and glottals for palatals.
The results described above suggest that the patients wearing maxillary prosthesis practice the pronunciation by themselves and need to train positively with a speech trainer as well as in order to become rehabilitated as soon as possible.