Summary
Objectives/Hypothesis
The goal of the present study was to determine if students can be trained to reliably
perceive dysphonia using the Dysphonic Severity Percentage (DSP) scale, a perceptual
measure shown to have high interrater reliability when used by speech-language pathologists
experienced with voice disorders. Because the DSP scale was found to be useful as
a research tool in the measurement of dysphonia, using it to train students to recognize
dysphonia can enhance their education as future clinicians and researchers.
Methods
This method involved having five inexperienced speech-language pathology students
listen to voice samples in two conditions (spontaneous speech and paragraph reading)
of 10 clients with moderate to severe dysphonia (phonotrauma); the students simultaneously
tallied the nondysphonic syllables on written content of the samples to obtain a DSP for both conditions.
Because the clients' dysphonias were moderate to severe, and there were many dysphonic
syllables, it was more efficient and advantageous for the students' perception and
training to tally the nondysphonic syllables, leaving the dysphonic syllables to calculate the DSP. By tallying the
nondysphonic syllables, the students were still recognizing which syllables were dysphonic by
not choosing them, thus increasing their perception of both normal and disordered
syllables.
Results and Conclusion
Statistical analysis using the intraclass correlation coefficient revealed high interrater
reliability and high correlations among the trained students for both spontaneous
speech and paragraph reading, thus indicating similar training experiences and perceptions.
This method appeared to be a more quantitative measure of perceptual ratings than
current scales, which use general gradations of dysphonic severity. Moreover, the
DSPs were similar between the newly trained students and experienced raters for spontaneous
speech, indicating that the students could be trained in the direction experienced
by voice clinicians. There was, however, a significant difference between the two
groups for paragraph reading, which will be discussed. It was concluded that the DSP
method was an effective technique to train students to recognize dysphonia.
Key Words
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Article info
Publication history
Published online: July 22, 2013
Accepted:
March 28,
2013
Identification
Copyright
© 2013 The Voice Foundation. Published by Elsevier Inc. All rights reserved.
