Female Teacher's Voice During Teaching

December 18, 2017 updated by: University of Oulu

The Well-being of Female Teacher's Voice During Teaching

Two voice therapy methods are compared. Activity noise levels and vocal load of teachers during teaching in primary school classrooms are evaluated. Acoustic and Workshop Interventions are implemented in order to reduce noise level during lesson.

Study Overview

Status

Completed

Conditions

Intervention / Treatment

Detailed Description

Due to the voice disorders, teachers are a major customer group for voice therapy. The main part of the study is comparison of two voice therapy methods.

There are several factors in the classroom that increase teacher's risk of voice disorders. One of the most significant is high noise level during lessons. This study explores the noise conditions the teachers are working in and how these conditions are related to the voice parameters and symptoms.

Finally, the study aims to determine whether classroom noise level can be lowered by improving classroom acoustics and by noise reducing workshops for teachers and pupils.

Study Type

Interventional

Enrollment (Actual)

54

Phase

  • Not Applicable

Participation Criteria

Researchers look for people who fit a certain description, called eligibility criteria. Some examples of these criteria are a person's general health condition or prior treatments.

Eligibility Criteria

Ages Eligible for Study

  • Child
  • Adult
  • Older Adult

Accepts Healthy Volunteers

No

Genders Eligible for Study

Female

Description

Inclusion Criteria:

  • Female teachers or teachers of special needs children from elementary schools
  • Voice symptoms and willingness to participate in voice therapy
  • Mother tongue Finnish
  • No hearing loss, no need to use a hearing aid
  • Non-smoking
  • No neurological diseases
  • No voice therapy during past year
  • Successful phoniatric examination with rigid laryngoscopy or nasal endoscopy

Exclusion Criteria:

  • Mother tongue other than Finnish
  • Need to use a hearing aid
  • Need for medical treatment in the larynx
  • Abnormalities of the larynx
  • Vocal cord paresis
  • Laryngitis
  • Posterior hypertrophy

Study Plan

This section provides details of the study plan, including how the study is designed and what the study is measuring.

How is the study designed?

Design Details

  • Primary Purpose: Treatment
  • Allocation: Randomized
  • Interventional Model: Parallel Assignment
  • Masking: Single

Arms and Interventions

Participant Group / Arm
Intervention / Treatment
Active Comparator: Voice therapy
An individually tailored voice therapy where the order and length of voice treatment methods will depend on the nature of each subject's voice problems. The intervention will take eight weeks and average of eight sessions (a' 45 min).
Behavioral: Voice therapy
Voice therapy with direct and indirect therapy elements.
Experimental: Voice therapy with carryover strategies
A voice therapy as described above and an enhanced carryover program. By carryover we mean the process of extending new vocal skills outside the clinic. It includes supplementary tasks and reminders that will be tailored individually out of those direct and indirect methods that the subjects have adopted during therapy sessions. Additionally, the teachers will be doing vocal warm-up and relaxation exercises together with their pupils int the beginning and in the middle of a school day. The intervention will take eight weeks.
Behavioral: Voice therapy with carryover strategies
Voice therapy with direct and indirect therapy elements and supplementary tasks and reminders.
Other: Control group
No intervention during eight weeks since this group will act as a temporary control group. After eight weeks, half of the participants in this group will be provided with Voice therapy and half with Voice therapy with carryover strategies.
Other: Control group
No therapy during eight weeks. After the control period half of the group will be provided with Voice therapy and half with Voice therapy with carryover strategies.

What is the study measuring?

Primary Outcome Measures

Outcome Measure
Measure Description
Time Frame
The change of the well-being of the teachers' voice.
Time Frame: Up to one week before the interventions, up to one week after the interventions, 6 months after the interventions, 1 year and 2 years after the interventions and up to one week after the control time (concerning control group).
Subjective evaluation.Data collected with a questionnaire (Voice Activity and Participation Profile, VAPP) from the participants, answers given on a visual analogical scale (VAS) of 100 mm (0 = no disorder, 100 = extreme disorder).
Up to one week before the interventions, up to one week after the interventions, 6 months after the interventions, 1 year and 2 years after the interventions and up to one week after the control time (concerning control group).

Collaborators and Investigators

This is where you will find people and organizations involved with this study.

Sponsor

University of Oulu

Collaborators

Oulu University Hospital
Umeå University
Tampere University
Sonvox AB

Investigators

  • Study Chair: Sirpa M Pirilä, MA, Ooulu

Study record dates

These dates track the progress of study record and summary results submissions to ClinicalTrials.gov. Study records and reported results are reviewed by the National Library of Medicine (NLM) to make sure they meet specific quality control standards before being posted on the public website.

Study Major Dates

Study Start (Actual)

December 7, 2009

Primary Completion (Actual)

December 20, 2014

Study Completion (Actual)

June 14, 2016

Study Registration Dates

First Submitted

December 1, 2017

First Submitted That Met QC Criteria

December 18, 2017

First Posted (Actual)

December 26, 2017

Study Record Updates

Last Update Posted (Actual)

December 26, 2017

Last Update Submitted That Met QC Criteria

December 18, 2017

Last Verified

December 1, 2017

More Information

Terms related to this study

Keywords

Additional Relevant MeSH Terms

Other Study ID Numbers

  • Ooulu

Drug and device information, study documents

Studies a U.S. FDA-regulated drug product

No

Studies a U.S. FDA-regulated device product

No

This information was retrieved directly from the website clinicaltrials.gov without any changes. If you have any requests to change, remove or update your study details, please contact register@clinicaltrials.gov. As soon as a change is implemented on clinicaltrials.gov, this will be updated automatically on our website as well.

Clinical Trials on Functional Voice Disorder

Clinical Trials on Voice therapy

Search Similar Trials

Sponsors and Collaborators

Medical Conditions

Drug Interventions

CROs by country

CROs in Israel

Conditions

Rare Diseases

Drug Interventions

Dietary Supplements

Sponsor/Collaborators

Locations

Subscribe