Velocity and Volume Measurements of Nasal and Oral Airflow in Normal and Cleft-Palate Speech, Utilizing a Warm-Wire Flowmeter and Two-Channel Recorder. 2

¹ Tufts Cleft Palate Institute, Boston, Massachusetts, The Webster Clinic for Plastic and Reconstructive Surgery, Brookline, Massachusetts, and Flow Corporation, Cambridge, Massachusetts

A method of rapidly and accurately measuring nasal and oral airflow velocities in speech and breathing was presented. From these measurements, volume flow rates and volumes of airflow over periods of time can be derived. Certain rapidly-changing characteristics of nasal leakage in palatopharyngeal incompetency can be observed and quantitated. The method, predicated on the cooling effect of air flowing by a warm-wire probe, provides another tool for research into the acts of breathing and speech, almost certainly has diagnostic value, and will probably be of use in the future in treatment and prognosis.