Voice accumulation and voice disorders in primary school teachers

Abstract

Statistics on professional voice users with vocal health issues demonstrate the significance of the problem. However, such disorders are not currently recognized as an occupational disease in Italy. Conducting studies examining the vocal health of occupational voice users is an important step in identifying this as an important public health issue. The current study was conducted in six primary schools in Italy with 25 teachers, one of the most affected occupational categories. A clinical examination was conducted (consisting of hearing and voice screening, a VHI, etc.). On this basis, teachers were divided into three groups: healthy subjects, subject with logopaedic disorders, and subjects with objectively measured pathological symptoms. The distributions of voicing and silence periods for the teachers at work were collected using the Ambulatory Phonation Monitor (APM3200), a device for long-term monitoring of vocal parameters. The APM senses the vocal fold vibrations at the base of the neck by means of a small accelerometer. Correlations were calculated between the voice accumulation slope (obtained by multiplying the number of occurrences for each period by the corresponding duration) and the clinical status of the teachers. The differences in voice accumulation distributions among the three groups were analyzed.