Vocal Roughness in Selected Pastors

Date of Graduation

Fall 1987

Degree

Master of Science in Communication Sciences and Disorders

Department

Communication Sciences and Disorders

Committee Chair

Randolph Deal

Abstract

Literature in adult voice disorders has placed several occupations (e.g., actors, teachers, singers, pastors) in a high risk category for voice disorders due to the vocational demands on the speaking voice. The purpose of this study was to delineate vocal roughness in a sample of pastors. Thirty-eight pastors from the Springfield, Missouri community filled out a voice questionnaire and were tape recorded sustaining the vowels / a, i, ae, ^ / and a test sentence, "Joe took father's shoe bench out". The tape recordings were presented to a panel of nine graduate students in communication disorders who rated the productions on a five-point equal-appearing-interval scale of vocal roughness. Further, the judges rated each production for normalcy. Results indicated adequate inter-and intra-judge agreement, ±1 scale value. Fifty-nine percent of the subjects had at least one of their productions rated as abnormal. This incidence was substantially higher than for the adult population as a whole.

Subject Categories

Communication Sciences and Disorders

Copyright

© Jacqueline Rae DeCocq

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Dissertation/Thesis

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