Kamen, R. S., & Watson, B. C. (1991). Effects of long-term tracheostomy on spectral characteristics of vowel production. Journal of Speech, Language, and Hearing Research, 34(5), 1057-1065.
Kamen and Watson (1991) completed a study on the effects long-term tracheostomy has on spectral characteristic of vowel production for children aged 39 to 60 months who underwent a tracheotomy in which they were cannulated between 15 to 42 months. Kamen and Watson (1991) examined 8 children who underwent a tracheotomy, 7 for subglottic stenosis and 1 for tracheoesphageal fistula. The small sample size for both the experimental group (8) and control group (8) may limit the studies ability to generalize to the population of individuals …show more content…
Kertoy and colleagues (1999) replicated Kamen and Watson’s study (1991), but in addition analyzed voice onset times for the production of stop sounds and phonological process use. For this study, Kertoy and colleagues (1999) used 6 children aged 2;8 to 6;8 years who underwent a tracheotomy at or before the age of 8 months old. Similar to the study completed by Kamen and Watson (1991), the small sample size limits the studies ability to generalize to the population of individuals with a tracheostomy. These individuals were not compared to a control group, but rather each child was analyzed a second time approximately 3 months later. Results supported the findings of Kamen and Watson (1991) which indicated that children who have a history of tracheostomy have difficulty producing vowels. It also indicated that each child had a delay in speech development characterized by a delay in sound productions and a presence of phonological processes. Even though results varied among subjects, Kertoy and colleagues (1999) suggest this research is important for understanding what speech characteristic may be present with children who have had a tracheostomy, and they argue that these individuals should have a phonological process evaluation as part of their standard assessment. Although only 6 children were analyzed, each child had reported use phonological