Speech Characteristics in Female Students Training to Be Speech-Language Pathologists

The purpose of this retrospective study was to determine the speech characteristics regarding speech intelligibility, voice, articulation, and fluency in future speech-language pathologists (SLPs). Additionally, in 31 SLP students the differences in speech characteristics between the first bachelor and the master year were measured.

The data of the screening assessments of 600 future SLPs (mean age: 18.4 years) of the first bachelor year were analyzed (period 1995-2010). To evaluate the students' progress during the program, the speech data of 31 female subjects (mean age: 21.4 years) were evaluated at the end of the program and compared to the original data. A consensus evaluation by 2 SLPs was used.

Speech intelligibility and fluency were evaluated as normal in 99% of the students. Perceptual evaluation of vocal quality revealed disordered vocal quality in 27%. The most prominent articulation errors were distortions of vowels and dental and interdental articulation of alveolar consonants. A significant decrease in these distortions after 3 years of education was found (p > 0.05).

Although an improvement in distortions in the master students was measured, articulation errors and dialect were present in SLP students who intended to work with speech and language disorders.