How Can Speech Therapy Help With Hyponasality?

Does your voice feel blocked?

Do people sometimes say you sound like you’re stuffed up?

If so, these are signs of hyponasality.

Hyponasality is a type of speech disorder called a resonance disorder.

It’s as if too little sound travels through your nasal cavity during speech.

Speech therapy is key to treat this problem.

Here at The Voz Institute, our therapy team offers a personalized and thorough approach to assessment and treatment.

In this article, we’ll take a closer look at hyponasality.

What Is Hyponasality?

When you speak, your voice “resonates” in different areas of your body.

Different speech sounds will resonate in different areas.

RELATED: Speech Therapy For Speech Sound Disorders

The sounds ‘m’, ‘n’, and ‘ng’ are considered “nasal” sounds.

That means you need your nose to produce them.

Try saying them while plugging your nose, and you’ll see what we mean.

Hyponasality causes difficulty producing nasal sounds.

In other words, there is a disruption to the airflow between your nasal and mouth cavities which makes your voice sound duller.

This makes hyponasality a resonance disorder, which is a type of voice disorder.

How To Tell If You Have Hyponasality

There are some tell-tale signs to look out for if you suspect you or your child has hyponasality.

You might notice that your voice sounds stuffy.

Think of how someone sounds when they’re sick – it’s the same idea.

In fact, being sick can cause temporary hyponasality.

Consider the nasal sounds we talked about earlier – ‘m’, ‘n’, and ‘ng’.

If you can’t produce those, it’s a big warning sign of hyponasality.

Causes Of Hyponasality

This is where things could get a little more technical so bear with us.

For resonance disorders in general, there are a few possible causes.

First, let’s start with velopharyngeal dysfunction (VPD).

This is a disorder that affects your velopharyngeal valve.

That’s a valve in your mouth and the top of your throat.

It stops food from going into your nose and controls airflow.

Any differences that affect the smooth functioning of your velopharyngeal valve could be behind your hyponasal resonance.

An oronasal fistula, on the other hand, is a small hole between your mouth and nose which can affect the sound of your voice.

In addition, people who are hard of hearing may also have hyponasality.

When hard of hearing children learn to speak, they do so without being able to hear others.

This can cause a number of differences in speech sound production, including hyponasality.

RELATED: How Does Hearing Impairment Affect Development for Children?

People with cleft lip or cleft palate often also have hyponasality.

This happens because they are more likely to have nasal structural differences, like a deviated septum.

This can reduce nasal resonance in speech sounds.

Speaking of which, a deviated septum can also lead to hyponasality on its own.

But there are also a few other possible causes, such as the following:

• Swelling
• Apert syndrome
• Blockage in the nasal or nasopharyngeal passages
• Complications from surgery/corrective surgery for VPD
• Abnormal velopharyngeal movement
• And others

Because there can be many causes behind hyponasality, an assessment by one of our speech-language pathologists (SLP) can be crucial for an accurate evaluation of your symptoms.

How Do Speech Therapists Evaluate Hyponasality?

There are multiple areas of consideration your speech therapist will evaluate when screening for hyponasality.

These include a thorough check of your medical history, examination of speech sounds, and hearing.

In particular, your speech therapist may look for

• Any surgeries that may affect your speech
• Any diagnoses of neurological conditions
• Any head injuries you’ve experienced
• And others

From there, your speech therapist will consider any physical causes.

This involves a physical examination to check for things like cleft lip or palate, enlarged tonsils, and others.

Finally, your speech therapist will evaluate your ability to produce speech sounds.

Consistency is key, so your therapist will compare your speech to a sample that matches your spoken language.

This helps to hone in on the specifics and avoid confusion.

Another step that a therapist will take is to check for any hearing loss or damage.

From there, your speech therapist will work to provide you with a diagnosis.

It’s worth noting that this section is written from the perspective of speech therapy for adults with hyponasality.

But kids can have hyponasal speech too.

If your child is the concern, your pediatric speech therapist will take a similar approach.

Speech Therapy Interventions For Hyponasality

If your hyponasality has a structural cause, you may need surgery to correct them.

In that case, your speech therapist can help you retrain your voice after surgery.

Otherwise, speech therapy is considered the best treatment for hyponasality.

Your speech therapist will put together a treatment plan designed to address your unique needs.

In particular, they may consider:

• Coaching and guidance to help you articulate specific sounds while shifting resonance
• Strategies to adjust clarity or volume of your speech
• Breathing techniques to help you keep pace while speaking

The goal is to help you communicate clearly and confidently.

Book Your Appointment With The Voz Institute Today

Do you have hyponasal speech?

Or, having read this article, do you think you might have it?

If so, speech therapy can help.

At The Voz institute, our team will be happy to assist with any speech concerns you have.

Get in touch with one of our licensed speech language pathologists and book your consultation today.

Book your appointment with The Voz Institute today.