CClinicalTrials.gg
CompletedNCT03382535Updated Dec 26, 2017

Female Teacher's Voice During Teaching

An interventional study of Voice therapy and Voice therapy with carryover strategies in Functional Voice Disorder, sponsored by University of Oulu. Completed. Open to female participants. Per ClinicalTrials.gov, last updated 2017-12-26.

Sponsored by University of Oulu · Not applicable, Interventional, and Treatment

Phase
Not applicable
Study type
Interventional
Enrollment
54
Allocation
Randomized
Sex
Female
01

Study summary

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.

Read the 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.

02

Conditions studied

  • Functional Voice Disorder

Browse trials for

Keywords

  • Voice disorder
  • Teacher's voice
  • Voice SPL (Voice sound pressure level)
  • Voice F0 (Voice fundamental frequency)
  • Voice therapy
  • Voice accumulator
  • Activity noise
  • Classroom
03

Who can participate

Ages eligible
Child (0–17), Adult (18–64), Older adult (65+)
Sexes eligible
Female
Accepts healthy volunteers
No

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

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
04

Study design

Phase
Not applicable
Primary purpose
Treatment
Allocation
Randomized
Intervention model
Parallel assignment
Masking
Single (Participant)
Enrollment
54 participants (actual)

Study arms

  • 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

  • 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

  • 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

Interventions

  • BehavioralVoice therapy

    Voice therapy with direct and indirect therapy elements.

  • BehavioralVoice therapy with carryover strategies

    Voice therapy with direct and indirect therapy elements and supplementary tasks and reminders.

  • OtherControl 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.

05

What researchers measure

Primary outcomes

  1. The change of the well-being of the teachers' voice.

    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).

    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).

06

Study locations

No study locations are listed for this record.

07

Registry details

Key details

Study ID
NCT03382535
Lead sponsor
University of Oulu
Collaborators
Tampere University, Oulu University Hospital, Umeå University, Sonvox AB
Responsible party
Sponsor
First posted
Dec 26, 2017
Start date
Dec 7, 2009
Primary completion
Dec 20, 2014
Completion
Jun 14, 2016
Last update
Dec 26, 2017

Study contacts

Sirpa M Pirilä, MA
study chair · Ooulu

Oversight

Data monitoring committee
No
FDA-regulated drug
No
FDA-regulated device
No
View the source record on ClinicalTrials.gov ↗

Not currently enrolling

This study is completed, as verified in Dec 2017. You cannot join it, but the record below documents what was studied.

Follow this study

Get an email when the registry record changes — status, dates, results — or when someone posts here.

Sign in to follow

Discussion

Questions and observations about this study, from anyone following it. Not medical advice, and not a channel to the study team — their contact details are on the registry record.

Sign in to join the discussion. Reading takes no account; posting does. You choose a display name, and a pseudonym is the default.

Nothing here yet. If you are running this trial, taking part in it, or weighing whether to, this is the place to say so.

Start the discussion