Dysphonia Interference in Schoolteachers' Speech Intelligibility in the Classroom

Area of Science:

• Speech-Language Pathology
• Education
• Audiology

Background:

• Schoolteachers frequently experience career-related changes.
• Vocal health is crucial for effective teaching.
• Dysphonia, a voice disorder, may affect professional communication.

Purpose of the Study:

• To investigate the impact of varying degrees of dysphonia on schoolteachers' speech intelligibility in a classroom setting.
• To determine if mild, moderate, or severe dysphonia affects students' ability to understand spoken sentences.

Main Methods:

• Thirty-nine 10-year-old students participated in a sentence transcription task.
• Sentences were spoken by four female voices: normal, mild dysphonia, moderate dysphonia, and severe dysphonia.
• Students' auditory processing and memory were assessed to ensure normal function.

Main Results:

• Speech intelligibility was significantly reduced in voices with moderate and severe dysphonia compared to normal voices (P ≤0.003).
• No significant difference in intelligibility was observed between normal and mild dysphonic voices.
• Students were 2.55 times more likely to make errors with moderate dysphonia and 3.06 times more likely with severe dysphonia.

Conclusions:

• Moderate and severe dysphonia negatively affect schoolteachers' speech intelligibility for students.
• The severity of dysphonia directly correlates with the increased probability of student comprehension errors.