Teachers’ Ability to Accurately Identify Disordered Voices

Abstract

The present study investigated whether or not elementary school classroom teachers can, without special training, consistently identify children with disordered voices. Forty-five elementary school classroom teachers and 64 junior/senior elementary education majors served as subjects. A listening task was devised utilizing 30 audiotaped samples of children’s voices. The subjects were told to listen to each sample and decide if they would refer the child to a speech-language pathologist for a suspected voice problem. Teacher and student data were analyzed separately in four comparisons each: (a) normal voices, referred versus not referred; (b) disordered voices, referred versus not referred; (c) normal voices not referred versus disordered voices referred; and (d) normal voices referred versus disordered voices not referred. The results demonstrate that elementary classroom teachers can consistently identify children with disordered voices. The implications of these results for teachers’ roles in the referral process and teacher/speech-language pathologist interaction are discussed.