Britta Hammarberg

Professor Emeritus/Emerita | Docent
Visiting address: Blickagången 9 A, Enheten för logopedi F67, 14186 Stockholm
Postal address: H9 Klinisk vetenskap, intervention och teknik, H9 CLINTEC Logopedi, 171 77 Stockholm
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About me

  • Doctoral degree in medical science/speech language pathology at the Karolinska Institutet (KI) 1986 with the dissertation Perceptual and Acoustic Analysis of Dysphonia. Associate professor at the Karolinska Institutet 1991, professor 1996. Retired Dec. 2008.

    After graduation as a speech language pathologist (SLP) from KI in 1966, I worked as a clinician at the Phoniatric Department, Sabbatsbergs Hospital, and as a supervisor at the SLP programme. In 1974 I moved together with department and SLP programme to the new-built Huddinge University Hospital, where I since then have been working both as a clinician with speech rehabilitation of individuals after laryngectomy and oral cancer surgery, and as supervisor and teacher of SLP students. My positions have been Senior lecturer at the SLP programme at KI 1976-1996, Head of the Department of Logopedics and Phoniatrics at KI, 1991-2008 and Programme Director for the SLP programme at KI 1991-2008.

Research

  • Research area:

    My research has been focusing on the evaluation of aberrant voice function with the aim of developing clinically applicable analysis methods/tools. Both organic and functional laryngeal voice disorders and alaryngeal voice have been in focus. Within my research I have developed a classification system, The Swedish Voice Evaluation Approach, SVEA, for audio-perceptual assessment of voice, which nowadays is used at many SLP and ENT clinics in Sweden. The perceptual dimensions that are crucial for the auditory impression of a voice have been correlated with data from different instrumental analyses, such as fundamental frequency analysis, long-time-average spectrum analysis, glottal waveform perturbation analysis, inverse filtering and correlograms. Data from these perceptual and acoustic analyses have been correlated with data from physiological observations of vocal fold vibration patterns by means of videostroboscopic laryngoscopy and high-speed imaging. The research projects have been performed as joint projects together with researchers at the Speech, Music and Hearing Department at KTH, as well as with colleagues, phoniatricians and research engineer at the Karolinska University Hospital.

    Ten doctoral dissertations have emerged from the research, with me as main or second supervisor.

    Ongoing research:

    Evaluation of the effect of so-called resonance tube phonation by means of high-speed imaging of vocal fold vibration and electroglottography (EGG)

    In collaboration with Professor Susanna Simberg, Åbo Akademi University, research engineer Hans Larsson and Ass. Prof. Maria Södersten at our department, and with Ass. Profs Stellan Hertegård and Per-Åke Lindestad, ENT-department, KI, we analyze how the voice source is affected by phonation through glass tubes, held down at a certain depth in water. The method was developed for voice training in Finland already in the 1960s and has been widely spread since then, recently also in Sweden. Preliminary data seem to indicate that the mucosal wave at the border of the vocal folds, the glottal wave, which is essential for good voice production, is positively affected by the massage that is created by the water bubbles due to the back pressure in the resonance tube during tube phonation. EGG data is used to depict the vocal fold opening closing pattern during resonance tube phonation.

    Development of an interactive training programme for voice evaluation

    The basis for this project is the above mentioned The Stockholm Voice Evaluation Approach (SVEA), which nowadays is widely used for audio perceptual voice analysis in SLP training programmes, as well as in clinics. In combination with acoustic and physiological data, a set of reference voices, so-called anchor voices, has been defined in the SVEA protocol by experienced listeners. A SVEA training programme is being developed to enhance SLPs´ and SLP students´ ability to perceptually assess pathological voices. One evident goal is to increase the consensus among SLPs for voice evaluation in the clinic.

Teaching

  • My teaching concerns perceptual and acoustic voice analysis. Other teaching areas are speech and voice rehabilitation of individuals after laryngectomy and after oral cancer treatment. I also supervise and examine master theses students, at request.

Articles

All other publications

Employments

  • Professor Emeritus/Emerita, Department of Clinical Science, Intervention and Technology, Karolinska Institutet, 2023-2026

Degrees and Education

  • Docent, 1991

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