Date of Award

2017

Document Type

Thesis

Degree Name

Master of Science

Program

Speech-Language Pathology, MS

First Advisor

Tammy Shilling

Second Advisor

Tevni Grajales

Third Advisor

Charles Reid

Abstract

Problem

There are many college/university students studying to become teachers, professional singers, and speech-language pathologists. Yet, despite research available on the risk of developing voice disorders in these areas of study, very little was found on such individuals while in the college setting. This is particularly true for speech-language pathologists who have limited research available overall.

Method

Nineteen students between the ages of 18- 43 years old, completed pre-and-post-testing of the Glottal Function Index (GFI), Voice Hygiene Questionnaire (VHQ), and the objective measures (maximum phonational frequency range, sustained phonation, jitter, and shimmer).

Results

The chi-square of independence results showed that the relationship between these scores is not significant (Sig. = .84). The independent samples t-test resulted in no significant difference between student teachers/music majors and speech-language pathology majors in GFI scores (Sig. = .34), VHQ scores (Sig. = .32), jitter scores (Sig. = .55), or shimmer scores (Sig. = .26).

Conclusion

Having an increase in the Glottal Function Index score does not affect the increase of a jitter score in an individual. Likewise, when pre-and post-scores of GFI, VHQ, jitter, and shimmer were compared between the two groups, there was no significant difference. However, due to the small sample size, further studies with a larger sample size are needed to substantiate our findings.

Subject Area

Voice--Care and hygiene; Voice disorders

Creative Commons License

Creative Commons Attribution-No Derivative Works 4.0 International License
This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-No Derivative Works 4.0 International License.

DOI

https://dx.doi.org/10.32597/theses/108/

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