Occurrence of vocal changes in preschoolers with no voice complaints: an auditory-perceptual and acoustic analysis

Abstract

Purpose: to verify, with the auditory-perceptual and acoustic parameters, the occurrence of voice changes in children with no voice complaints, per sex. Methods: the registers of 36 children with no voice complaints, aged 6 to 8 years, of whom 19 were males, were assessed. The databank consisted of the recordings of sustained vowels, sentences, and spontaneous speech. The auditory-perceptual analysis was conducted with the Consensus Auditory-Perceptual Evaluation of Voice, and the acoustic analysis, with VoxMetria. The fundamental frequency, jitter, shimmer, noise, and glottal-to-noise excitation ratio were analyzed. The Mann-Whitney test was applied for numerical variables, and the McNemar test, for the categorical ones, at the p < 0.05 significance level. Results: of the 5 children with mild voice changes, 4 were males. The most frequent resonance deviation was the laryngopharyngeal one. There was no difference between the sexes in the auditory-perceptual findings. The fundamental frequency in the group with changes was lower than that in the group without changes. There was a statistical association between the changes in the auditory-perceptual assessment and the acoustic parameters. Conclusion: voice changes occurred in 13.89% of the studied sample of children with no voice complaints, without differences between the sexes in the auditory-perceptual parameters. Vocal deviations were in a mild degree in all children who had them, the most frequent ones being roughness and breathiness. The fundamental frequency and shimmer were the acoustic parameters whose values most often occurred outside the reference limits, in both genders.

Pediatric voice-related quality of life and acoustic analysis of voice: a study in schoolchildren

“…A disfonia na infância, a despeito de seu impacto na qualidade de vida das crianças, muitas vezes não é considerada por pais e professores 3,[13][14][15]22,23 . Além disso, a própria análise perceptivo-auditiva, em crianças, apresenta-se peculiar em relação à avaliação do adulto, devido à maturação dos sistemas envolvidos na fonação durante o processo de desenvolvimento 22 . Portanto, a utilização de recursos para triagens vocais de escolares pode trazer benefícios à promoção da saúde vocal e prevenção de desvios na voz, nessa população.…”

“…Ao se considerar, portanto, a alta prevalência de disfonia na infância, a atenção especial que a avaliação e diagnóstico de vozes infantis exige 1,19 , e que podem ocorrer desvios vocais em crianças sem queixas 22 , o objetivo deste estudo foi avaliar a qualidade de vida em voz autorreferida e correlacioná-la à qualidade acústica da voz em escolares, sem queixas vocais.…”