Treatment Efficacy of Group Vocal Hygiene Education for Middle School Teachers: Acoustical Analysis of Voice and Self-Evaluation of Vocal Fatigue Before and After the Education

Song, Yun Kyung; Sim, Hyun Sub

ORIGINAL ARTICLE

Commun Sci Disord. 1999;4(1): 1-22.

Yun Kyung Song^` , and Hyun Sub Sim^`

송윤경(Yun Kyung Song)| 심현섭(Hyun Sub Sim)

ABSTRACT

Vocal hygiene education is an indirect treatment approach in order to maintain and improve the vocal health by educating the avoidance of vocal hyperfunction or too much muscular contraction of the laryngeal system. However , the education has been offered individually to people with voice problems in the clinical setting, but not to many professional voice user s who have not recognized the importance of vocal health and learned the methods of vocal management . Therefore, the current study aimed to experimentally examine the treatment efficacy of group vocal hygiene education for middle school teacher s. For this purpose, the study compared the voices of experimental group (N=10) who received the education and control group (N=10) who did not by using three acoustical parameter s (RAP, PPQ, APQ) and self- evaluation of vocal fatigue. Voice samples for the acoustic analysis were collected just before education and 6 weeks later. The experimental group showed statistically significant voice improvement in all the acoustical parameter s and self evaluation after 6 weeks. However , the control group' s voice quality got wor se after 6 weeks. The result s suggest that group vocal hygiene education can be an effective way to maintain and improve the vocal health of other professional voice user s as well as teachers.