Abstract

Teachers use their voice as a key part of their profession, often speaking at an increased loudness for multiple hours a day. This places teachers at a high risk for voice disorders, which costs the United States billions of dollars annually. Vocal fatigue, or worsening of the voice as the day progresses, is a common complaint from teachers. The present study investigated respiratory and laryngeal function in teachers pre and post a 1-hour vocal loading challenge. Six teachers and three student teachers (total of 9 subjects) produced four speech tasks and completed two perceptual ratings pre and post a 1-hour reading aloud vocal loading challenge in 70 dB multi-talker babble. Dependent variables included vocal tiredness and vocal effort ratings, cepstral peak prominence (CPP), low/high spectral ratio (L/H ratio), sound pressure level (SPL), utterance length (# of syllables), percent vital capacity expended per syllable (%VC/syllable), and lung volume initiation (%LVI-EEL), termination (%LVT-EEL), and excursion (%LVE). Following the vocal loading challenge, utterance length and SPL significantly increased, and %VC/syllable significantly decreased. %LVI-EEL increased post-vocal loading challenge, but it did not reach statistical significance. No laryngeal differences were found. These results suggest that subjects altered the respiratory system for three possible scenarios: to overcome perceived increase in difficulties for speech, to plan for longer utterances, or to overcome hyperventilation caused by the 1-hour vocal loading challenge.

Keywords

Health and environmental sciences, Laryngeal, Respiratory, Teachers, Vocal loading

Disciplines

Rehabilitation and Therapy

Degree Type

Thesis

Degree Name

Master of Science (MS)

Department

Agricultural and Biological Engineering

First Advisor

Jessica E. Huber

Committee Member 1

Preeti Sivasankar

Committee Member 2

Barbara SW Solomon

Date of Award

Fall 2014

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