Comparison of tidal breathing and reiterant speech breathing using whole body plethysmography

Classic research in the field of speech breathing has found differences in the characteristics of breathing patterns between speech respiration and tidal breathing. Though much research has been done on speech breathing mechanisms, relatively little research has been done using the whole body plethysmograph. In this study, we sought to examine differences and similarities between tidal respiration and breathing in reiterant speech using measures obtained through whole-body plethysmography. We hypothesize that there are not significant differences between pulmonary measures in tidal respiration and in speech breathing. This study involves tidal breathing on a spirometer attached to the whole-body plethysmograph followed by reiterant speech using the syllable /da/ while reading the first part of The Rainbow Passage. Experimental measures include compression volumes during both breathing tasks, and absolute lung volumes as determined from the spirometer and calibrated whole-body plethysmograph. These are compared with the pulmonary subdivisions obtained from pulmonary function tests, including vital capacity, functional residual capacity, and total lung volume.