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麻豆精品 S淏eing hoarse isn 麻豆精品 S檛 necessarily a problem unless it persists for more than two weeks, 麻豆精品 S� Awan says. 麻豆精品 S淲hen it disrupts daily life beyond an irritation, medical referral and potential speech pathology services come into play. The goal of my research is to help speech pathologists more easily determine the 麻豆精品 S榳hy 麻豆精品 S� regarding voice disorders. 麻豆精品 S�
With his current research, Awan and his team can literally hear the future of speech pathology. They can see the future, too. In fact, Awan can hold it in the palm of his hand. For more than 30 years, the research professor in UCF 麻豆精品 S檚 School of Communication Sciences and Disorders has focused his lifelong interest in acoustics and his expertise in voice evaluation to find the root causes of communication disorders that affect as many as one in ten people in the U.S. One of the unsolved problems in voice-disorder assessments enticed him out of retirement so he could pursue a simple solution, this time with a $3.12 million dollar grant funded by the National Institute on Deafness and Other Communication Disorders and a team of six interdisciplinary researchers from three universities.
Today, Awan and his team believe they have an answer: a whistle. Not a cumbersome costly machine, but a vortex whistle small enough to fit into a shirt pocket. In its final form, it will be biodegradable, disposable, and affordable. It will have no moving parts and doesn 麻豆精品 S檛 need to be powered. Awan envisions the whistles being as readily available as a bag of dental-floss picks. Accompanying software that captures and analyzes the vortex whistle tone completes the system.
He also sees them changing lives, soon.
麻豆精品 S淥ur version of the vortex whistle addresses a widely known deficit that speech pathologists deal with in terms of accurately assessing voice-disordered patients, 麻豆精品 S� Awan says.
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Awan talks about how this project came about.
麻豆精品 S淭his all started at a voice disorder conference, 麻豆精品 S� he says. 麻豆精品 S淧eople were discussing the fact there were no low-cost tools to measure aerodynamics as it relates to voice. In my mind, I knew there must be something out there that could be reimagined. 麻豆精品 S�
Awan, the speech scientist who once thought following his graduate work in the U.S. that he might return to his childhood home in London, Ontario, Canada, to pursue a career in music, used his knowledge in acoustics to consider a few ideas. A flute? A referee 麻豆精品 S檚 whistle?
麻豆精品 S淣either of them produces a sound specifically related to the amount of air flow going into them, 麻豆精品 S� Awan says. 麻豆精品 S淭hen I became aware of the vortex whistle. It has no moving parts. Air enters the cylinder, which forces the air to spiral and exert pressure against the walls of the cylinder before exiting. This creates a signal that has a pitch and frequency that are directly proportional to the amount of air flowing into the whistle. That 麻豆精品 S檚 the principle. 麻豆精品 S�
The frequency of the vortex whistle sound wave can then be converted to measurements of airflow and volume.
The vortex whistle 麻豆精品 S檚 potential is why Awan took up his friend and colleague, UCF Professor David Eddins, on an offer to unretire, form a team, and work toward applying the science. The NIDCD-funded grant has accelerated the progress. At Purdue, his son, Jordan Awan, leads data analysis while aerodynamics engineer Jun Chen works on modifications of the whistle for specific tasks. At Emory University, Amanda Gillespie conducts studies with voice disordered human subjects. And at UCF, Awan, Eddins and Assistant Professor Victoria McKenna have access to lab space built to spec in the Communication Technologies Research Center in the UCF Innovative Center 麻豆精品 S� sound-treated booths, an anechoic chamber and a reception area for subjects participating in tests. In the same building are a speech and hearing clinic and capabilities for 3D printing and simulation.
麻豆精品 S淔or the vortex whistle to be ready for use, its construction has to be very precise, 麻豆精品 S� Awan says. 麻豆精品 S淚t also requires software development to accurately capture and analyze a somewhat difficult soundwave. We 麻豆精品 S檙e getting close. 麻豆精品 S�
The Journal of Voice has already published the study from Awan 麻豆精品 S檚 team as an award-winning cover story. Since then, various versions of the whistle have been computer-modeled and 3D printed. The modifications are being tested in the first of three large-scale human subject studies. The second study, in 2025, will look at subjects from 5 to 90 years old to see how well the vortex whistle works to document potential changes in measurements of respiratory volume and airflow during voice production across the lifespan. And the final study will utilize the vortex whistle as a treatment-outcome measure before and after medical procedures for vocal-fold paralysis.
From there, the application could be far-reaching.
麻豆精品 S淢y hope with the vortex whistle, 麻豆精品 S� Awan says, 麻豆精品 S渋s that we start with speech and voice-disordered patients, and then identify its usefulness in other areas of medicine and associated areas such as exercise science and sports physiology. By making it affordable and accessible, there 麻豆精品 S檚 no limit to how many people can ultimately benefit from it. 麻豆精品 S�
