Lecture 15 Transgender Voice

Question 1

How does the SLP work on developing an ‘appropriate’ pitch when working with transgender clients?

Answer 1

First: assess the pitch range and habitual pitch as well as optimal pitch

*Habitual Pitch: duing sustained/counting/reading & spontaneous

*Optimal Pitch: uh huh /mmhmm / throat clear

*Pitch Range: lowest & highest

*Spectrogram: assess formant frequencies

*Intonation: assess convo. pitch range

Question 2

What are other areas to look for in terms of assessment for transgender clients?

Answer 2

*check for glottal attacks on vowel initial words
*assess vowel durations
*light vs heavy artic.
*articulatory precision
*speech rate and intensity
*language, syntax, semantics
*pragmatics & discourse
*nonverbal comm.

Question 3

From Female to Male Transgender Voice, what is typically done to lower voice?

Answer 3

*hormone treatments

*as well as shorten vocal folds - lower pitch but weakens voice
*establish chest resonance
*Yawn-sigh to lower larynx

Question 4

What is the gender ambiguous pitch range?

Answer 4

155Hz - 185Hz

Question 5

How does an SLP work on pitch for Male to Female Transgender clients?

Answer 5

adjusting the sF₀ (speaking fundamental frequency)

avg. male sF0 = 110 Hz
avg. female sF₀ = 220 Hz

Question 6

What does the SLP do to train pitch?

Answer 6

use Resonant Voice Therapy
*begin with a pitch between 150-185Hz
*starting at 150-160Hz is reasonable
*pitch can be gradually increased until final sF₀ target is achieved w/o vocal strain or laryngeal muscle tension

Question 7

How do you train pitch range?

Answer 7

*establish a range for sF₀ usually 1 semitone above and 1 semitone below target sF₀
*Convo. pitch range - 12 semitones
Male: 93-175 Hz (82 Hz)
Female: 165-311 Hz (146 Hz)

gender ambiguous: 131-247 Hz (116 Hz) 11 semitones

Question 8

What are some differences between male and female voice?

Answer 8

*females use intonation more than stress to emphasize meaning
*men are monotone, use loudness to emphasize meaning
*males speak faster than females
*females tend to pause more frequently and longer and prolong individual phonemes

Question 9

What are some differences between male and female in terms of articulation?

Answer 9

*females tend to elongate vowels
*females pronounce words with greater articulatory precision
(use light articulation / linking and blending / oral motor (more mouth opening and lip rounding)

Question 10

What are some syntax differences between males and females?

Answer 10

*females use adverbial or tag clauses i.e. “I did a good on the test, I believe.”
*females show more ‘classic’ proper speech than males

Question 11

What are some semantic differences between men and women?

Answer 11

*men and women use different purposes to have different meanings in the same word
*women use intensifier ‘so’ more often and use greater use of adjectives and adverbs and use less slang and swear words