Donna Skelcy, Rochester Hills, Michigan 

Sue Ellen Linville, a voice specialist in the Department of Speech Pathology and Audiology at Marquette University, responds:

Voices change between young adulthood and old age because of anatomical changes in the larynx (voice box), respiratory system, mouth, and tissues of the throat. Some of those changes include atrophy of muscles, increased stiffness of tissues, and drying of membranes. There is also evidence that facial bones continue to grow during this period, although the magnitude of the growth is small. These physical changes affect your voice by increasing the instability of vocal cord vibration, altering the pitch level, and reducing the amount of air available in a single breath when speaking. Aging also affects the manner in which the voice resonates as it travels from the vocal cords to the lips, and those resonance changes affect voice quality.

Age-related voice changes are different for men and women, with men tending to show more dramatic changes. In men, speaking pitch lowers from young adulthood to middle age and then rises after middle age. By age 80, a man can expect that his speaking pitch will be at the highest level of his adult life. In women, the speaking pitch remains relatively unchanged from young adulthood to middle age. Pitch lowers slightly at menopause and then remains relatively steady into old age. Other age-related voice and speech changes in both men and women include a slower speaking rate and the restriction of pitch range.