Perceptual Assessment of the Tracheoesophageal Voice

Aim of this study was to validate the Sunderland Tracheoesophageal Perceptual Scale (SToPS) in Italian language by checking the inter- and intra-rater reliability.

The validation of the tool involved the following steps: 1) Translation and adaptation of the SToPS into Italian language; 2) Recruitment of participants (43 laryngectomized patients with a voice prosthesis and 12 health professionals - 6 speech and language therapists (SLTs) and 6 Ear, Nose, and Throat (ENTs) surgeons - classified into experienced or not at assessing voice; 3) Recording of patients' speech samples; 4) Perceptual evaluation of recorded speech samples (test and re-test) performed by the 12 health professionals; 5) Statistical analysis (quadratic weighted Cohen Kappa and weighted Kappa of Light coefficients).

SLTs with specific experience in tracheo-esophageal and laryngeal voice rated more reliably than the others raters. For all groups of raters, the inter-rater agreement was worse than the intra-rater one for 9/10 parameters. Exclusively for experienced SLTs, only the "Impairment of social acceptability" parameter reached a good level of inter-rater agreement.

In conclusion, the Italian version of SToPS can be considered a reliable tool. As in the original version, expert SLTs may be considered the optimal judges for tracheoesophageal voice assessment.