A comparison of the speech acceptability of good and excellent esophageal and tracheoesophageal speakers.

Thirteen esophageal speakers (8 male, 5 female) and 12 tracheoesophageal (t-e) speakers (7 male, 5 female) were placed into eight groups based on gender, voice type, and speaking proficiency (excellent or good). Audio recordings of each speaker reading the Rainbow Passage (Fairbanks, 1960) were made. The resultant samples were judged for acceptability of speech by 25 naive listeners trained in use of a five-point equal-appearing-interval scale. An analysis of variance of the listener data indicated that speaker proficiency but not voice type had a significant effect on judgments of acceptability, indicating that the listeners perceived no difference in the acceptability of esophageal and t-e speech.