Perceptual analysis and acoustics measures of voice pre and post-test of continuous speech in young women

• Grant number: 11/23125-8
• Support Opportunities: Scholarships in Brazil - Scientific Initiation
• Start date: April 01, 2012
• End date: December 31, 2012
• Field of knowledge: Health Sciences - Speech Therapy
• Principal Investigator: Lílian Neto Aguiar Ricz
• Grantee: Patrícia Massucatto Milanello
• Host Institution: Faculdade de Medicina de Ribeirão Preto (FMRP). Universidade de São Paulo (USP). Ribeirão Preto , SP, Brazil

Abstract

Vocal fatigue is considered one of the most common and debilitating symptoms of vocal disorders and is often found in individuals who use their voices professionally. Several physiological biomechanical mechanisms may contribute to vocal fatigue, which can also be related to other etiologic factors such as the physical, psychological and environmental ones. The time to induce vocal fatigue varies from 15 minutes to 2 hours, however, changes in voice quality are more likely to occur if the speech aloud is held for at least one hour. From this concept, this study is aimed to compare the voice of young women before and after the trial of continuous speech for 60 minutes using the scale GIRBAS. There will be analyzed 60 types of voices of women with a mean age of 20 years old, people with no history of dysphonia, and that who do not use their voices professionally. Participants will be submitted to videolaryngoestroboscopy in order to exclude any vocal problem, and before and after the test of continuous speech, the participants will be instructed to produce the vowel /a/ sustained with normal vocal intensity and frequency, making a total of two samples per participant. For the continuous speech test, they will be offered a standard text for reading and continued repetition for 60 minutes. The sample characterization will be performed by the perceptual analysis of vocal parameters in accordance with the scale of the trial GIRBAS by three independent experts in speech voice. The characterization of the recorded voice obtained before the test of continuous speech is marked as a fixed variable and will control the characterization of the sound signal obtained after 60 minutes, performing analytical and descriptive analysis of correlation among variables.(AU)