Fundamental voice frequence during normal and abnormal growth, and after androgen treatment.

TLDR

The study recommends using the method to monitor voice changes during androgen therapy. The authors measured fundamental and lowest voice frequencies in 374 healthy individuals from age 6 to adulthood. The study found that fundamental and lowest voice frequencies decline with age, differ by sex, drop during puberty, are elevated in hypopituitary and Turner syndrome children, low in delayed‑puberty boys, abnormally high in some prenatal growth‑failure cases, and that Turner girls show early androgen‑induced voice lowering, demonstrating the instrument’s utility for assessing growth‑failure syndromes and pubertal stages.

Abstract

A simple treatment was shown to be suitable for clinical measurement of fundamental voice frequency. Basal frequency (SFF) and lowest frequency (LF) were determined in 374 normal subjects aged 6 years to adulthood. SFF fell between ages 8 and 10 years in boys (from 259 to 247 Hz), but not in girls (253 Hz). LF fell between ages 6 and 10 years in boys (from 234 to 203 Hz) and girls (from 230 to 218 Hz), and a sex difference appeared. In puberty, parallel to pubic hair (PH) development, a gradual fall of SFF and LF occurred in both boys (to 100 and 90 Hz, respectively) and girls (to 213 and 180 Hz). As a group, young hypopituitary children and girls with Turner's syndrome had a high SFF, and prepubertal boys with delayed maturation a low SFF. In some children with prenatal growth failure, SFF was abnormally high. The girls with Turner's syndrome exhibited a high, though individually variable, sensitivity of voice to androgen; their voices became lower before the appearance of any other masculinising effects. The instrument is useful for characterisation of growth failure syndromes and stages of puberty. It is particularly recommended for monitoring an undesirable effect on the voice during androgen treatment.