The relationship between communicative participation and postlaryngectomy speech outcomes

Background. The purpose of this study was to examine relationships between communicative participation and postlaryngectomy speech outcomes, including listener-rated speech intelligibility and acceptability, and patient-rated speech acceptability and voice handicap. Methods. Thirty-six laryngectomized individuals completed the Communicative Participation Item Bank (CPIB) short form and the Voice Handicap Index-10 (VHI-10). They provided recordings from the Sentence Intelligibility Test (SIT) and a reading passage, and rated their own speech acceptability. Forty-eight inexperienced listeners transcribed the SIT sentences to derive intelligibility scores. Eighteen additional listeners judged the speech acceptability using the rating scales. Results. Listeners judged tracheoesophageal speakers as significantly more intelligible and acceptable than electrolaryngeal speakers (p < .05). Speech acceptability was significantly more acceptable to speakers than listeners (p < .05). Weak, nonsignificant relationships were found between communicative participation and listener-rated outcomes. Stronger, significant relationships were found between communicative participation and self-rated speech acceptability and voice handicap (p < .05). Conclusion. Patient-reported communication outcomes are complementary to listener-rated outcomes. (C) 2015 Wiley Periodicals, Inc.