Purpose: The purpose of this study was to examine laryngeal and respiratory physiological changes in teachers before and after a 1-hour vocal loading challenge.
Methods: Twelve teachers completed ratings of vocal tiredness, vocal effort, and produced a reading passage and monologue before and after a 1-hour vocal loading challenge (reading aloud in noise). Sound pressure level, lung volume parameters, cepstral peak prominence, and low/high spectral ratio were measured.
Results: After loading, participants significantly increased vocal effort, vocal tiredness, utterance length, and sound pressure level, and significantly decreased % vital capacity/syllable.
Conclusions: Following the 1-hour reading-aloud challenge, tiredness and effort increased. However, lung volume did not change and cepstral peak prominence and low/high spectral ratio remained in the normal range. Future studies are needed to understand the effect of vocal use and vocal loading in teachers.
Keywords: Respiration; Teachers; Vocal fatigue; Vocal loading; Voice.
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