The Velopharyngeal Port (VP Port) скачать в хорошем качестве

The Velopharyngeal Port (VP Port)

Today I want to talk about something called the velopharyngeal port—or the VP port for short—and how it affects the way we speak. The VP port is like a doorway between your mouth and your nose, its located at the back of your throat. When we talk, eat, or even breathe, this “door” opens and closes to direct air where it needs to go. When the VP port is working properly, it closes tightly when we make most speech sounds, so the air comes out of our mouth—not our nose. But for nasal sounds like "m," "n," and "ng," the VP port opens to let sound out through the nose. This balance is what gives us normal sounding speech, its called normal resonance. Now, when something goes wrong with that “door,” we call it a velopharyngeal dysfunction, or VPD. There are three main types of problems that can happen: Velopharyngeal Insufficiency (VPI): This is when there's not enough tissue to close the door completely—often seen in people with a cleft palate or after certain surgeries. So if the muscles try to close it, they physically can’t. This can lead to a very nasal-sounding voice Velopharyngeal Incompetence: All parts are all there, but they don’t move well. Velopharyngeal Mislearning: This one’s about a person’s speech habits. Sometimes a person learns to use their voice in a way that sends sound through the nose, even though the door closes just fine. So, what does this look like in everyday speech? Hypernasality – when too much sound comes through the nose. Hyponasality – when not enough sound comes through the nose. Nasal air emission – when you can hear air escaping through the nose. The good news? These issues can be treated. Sometimes it’s with speech therapy, and other times it might require surgery—like a pharyngeal flap, which helps close the space so sound and air go in the right direction. Specialists like speech-language pathologists and ENT doctors work together to figure out what’s going on and how to help. In summary The VP port helps control the airflow between our mouth and nose. I hope this helps you better understand how important this little "doorway" is for speech and more thank you for watching!