Date of Award

5-2005

Document Type

Thesis

Degree Name

Master of Science (MS)

Department

Communication Sciences & Disorders

First Advisor

Rami, Manish

Abstract

The purpose of this study was to examine the effects of vocal abuse in school teachers and teacher's aides pre and post one academic term. Vocal abuse was defined as any of several behaviors, including long periods of talking, yelling, smoking, consuming alcohol, etc. that can result in damage to the laryngeal mechanism. Initially, the participants of the study included fifteen elementary school teachers and five elementary teacher's aides from two schools: the Red Lake Madsen Public School, and Golden Learning Center. Six participants were excluded from the study for various reasons. Participants were randomly assigned to either Group 1 or Group 2. Group 1 included two teacher's aides and five teachers on a daily term (short term) and Group 2 included one teacher's aide and six teachers during one academic term (long term).

It was hypothesized that the school teachers and teacher's aides who participated in vocally abusive behaviors will display differences in the measured vocal qualities pre and post testing. Data collection included voice recording productions of the vowels /a/. A paired samples t-test was used to determine if a statistically significant difference existed between teachers in the short term group versus the long term group and between pre and post terms. The results for the short term group revealed a statistically significant difference in one acoustic measure fundamental frequency.

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