Immediate Effect of Semioccluded Vocal Tract Exercises Using Resonance Tube Phonation in Water on Women Without Vocal Complaints

Abstract

Objective: To analyze the immediate effects of semioccluded vocal tract exercises on vocal quality and vocal self-assessment using resonance tube phonation in water in women without voice complaints, and to compare these results with those obtained using tongue trills and unvoiced fricative exercises.

Methods: This was a quasi-experimental study. The participants were 30 women aged 18-39 years and without vocal complaints. All participants performed three exercises for 3 minutes: experimental exercise (EE: phonation into a resonance flexible tube in water exercise), control exercise (tongue trill exercise), and placebo exercise (PE: unvoiced fricative exercise). Three outcomes were analyzed-vocal self-assessment, auditory-perceptual evaluation, and acoustic analysis.

Results: The vocal self-assessment showed significantly greater improvement after EE than after the other exercises. There were no significant differences in auditory-perceptual evaluation or acoustic analyses in any of the voice exercises.

Conclusion: The EE promoted an immediate positive effect in the subjective self-assessment, with better results compared with PE. However, the clinical vocal evaluation did not indicate immediate positive effects after 3 minutes of EE, control exercise, or PE.

Keywords: Exercises; Phonation; Voice; Voice quality; Voice training.