The inability to produce soft voice (IPSV): A tool to detect vocal change in school-teachers

Purpose. This study investigated whether clinicians could detect voice changes reported by teachers, from self-ratings teachers conducted of their inability to produce soft voice (IPSV). Methods. Ten teachers wore a vocal dosimeter and completed daily IPSV ratings approximately every 2 hours for 14 days. Following the 2 weeks of dosimetry, two speech clinicians specialized in voice rated the teachers’ IPSV from dosimeter recordings. Teacher and clinician ratings were compared for each participant. Results. Although agreement between teacher and clinician ratings was not significant, descriptive analyses demonstrated an average difference score of 1.7 (SD 1.4) between teacher and clinician ratings. Conclusions. This study supports the potential usefulness of the IPSV as a simple tool to detect voice changes in oneself or others.