Sustained phonations of the vowels /a/ and /i/ were recorded from 89 patients with voice disorders, who were divided into five pathological subgroups. In addition, recordings were made from a control group of 23 normophonic participants. All recordings were segmented into onset, steady state, and offset, and analyzed acoustically. Results revealed the following findings: 1) only minor differences were found between the acoustical analyses based on the steady state versus the entire vowel; 2) the tested acoustic measures could discriminate between test and control groups, but not among the different pathological groups; 3) the contribution of the data gathered from the onset and/or offset of the vowel did not contribute significant information beyond that which was provided by the steady state.

Index Terms. voice pathology, sustained phonation, acoustic analysis, vowel segment