Specialists working in the field of staging, restoring and treating the voice (phoniatrists, phonopedists, otolaryngologists, speech therapists) note a tendency towards an increase in diseases of the vocal apparatus among teachers, which leads to dysphonia and aphonia. A university teacher is a voice-speech profession that requires an increased tension of the vocal apparatus. The problem of detecting voice disorders in persons of the voice-speech profession is social and economically in demand.
voice, functional voice quality, voice-speech profession, higher school teachers
The teaching profession is one of the most important speech professions for society. A number of factors, namely prolonged speech stress, difficult acoustic conditions and emotional fatigue, often lead to voice disturbances. The consequences of these violations may be both the teacher's voice discomfort and acoustic difficulties in perceiving the material of the lesson among students, and the teacher's complete inability to further professional activity due to dysphonia (partial voice impairment) or aphonia (complete absence). The social significance of this kind of consequences can hardly be overestimated, since the quality of education directly depends on the teacher's ability to present educational material.
In 2020, on the basis of PNU, the head (candidate of pedagogical sciences, associate professor Larina Elena Anatolyevna) and students of the speech therapy scientific and educational laboratory "Logos" of the Faculty of Primary Preschool and Defectological Education of the Pedagogical Institute with the methodological support of the Department of Sociology, Political Science and Regional Studies as part of the student project "Appreciate your voice!" a sociological study was organized and carried out on the google forms platform. 95 teachers took part in the survey.
The sociological survey "Assessment of the state of the voice" was prepared on the basis of theoretical sources on phonopedics and phoniatrics by the authors Vasilenko Yu.S., Dmitriev LB, Ermolaeva V.G., Levina R.E., Maksimova I. Orlova E.V. , Lavrova O.S. [1; 2: 3].
The purpose of this survey is to improve the functional quality of the voice of university teachers, to identify factors, poor voice health. The respondents were asked 27 questions with the choice of the most suitable respondent. Filling out the questionnaire did not take much time: about 10-15 minutes.
- Your gender:
• Female
• Male
2. Select your age range:
- 18-25
- 23-35
- 35-45
- 45-55
- 55-65
- 65 and more
3. What is your professional experience?
- Up to 5 years
- 5-10 years
- 10-15 years old
- 15-20 years old
- 20-25 years old
- 25-30 years old
- 31 and up
4. Do you consider your profession to be voice and speech?
- Yes
- No
5. Do you know what professional voice training is?
- Yes
- No
6. For your entire working day, the total voice load reaches:
• Less than 3 hours
• 3 hours
• 5 hours
• 6 hours
• More than 6 hours
- Do you do vocals?
- Yes
- No
8. Do you consider your voice to be intonationally expressive?
- Yes
- No
- I find it difficult to answer
9. Is the intonational expressiveness of speech important in the teacher's professional activity?
- Yes
- No
- I find it difficult to answer
10. During the working day, do you feel voice discomfort, voice change and fatigue?
- Yes
- No
- Sometimes
11. Do you see the symptoms presented? Choose one or more of the answers provided.
- Hoarseness
- Hoarseness of voice
- Tired of a voice after a working day
- Pain in the larynx
- Sore throat
- Desire to cough up
- Shortness of breath
- No, I do not observe any of the presented symptoms
12. After how many years of teaching, have you felt unhealthy changes in your voice?
- Up to 5 years
- 5-10 years
- 10-15 years old
- 15-20 years old
- 20-25 years old
- 25-30 years old
- 31 and higher
13. When you feel changes that are unusual for your physiological voice (select one or more answer options)
- In the morning
- In the afternoon
- In the evening
- At the end of the working week, semester, at the end of the academic year
- No voice changes
14. How long does it usually take for you to recover your voice and sore throat?
- One evening, assuming the vocal cords are at rest
- Two days off
- More than two days
- Not necessary
- I find it difficult to answer
15. In your opinion, do voice problems affect your professional activity?
• Do not affect
• Influence
• Influence insignificantly
• Impossible to engage in professional activities
16. Which of the following options is the main reason for your voice impairment?
• Unfavorable working conditions
• My speech apparatus has a large speech load
• Lack of voice acting
• Presence of ENT diseases
17. How often do you suffer from infections of ENT organs, various colds?
• Often (more than 2 times a year)
• Sometimes (1-2 times a year)
• Very rarely (less than once a year)
18. Do you have a chronic respiratory disease?
• Yes
• No
19. Do you have a thyroid disease?
• Yes
• No
20. Have you had any previous larynx / vocal cord surgeries?
• Yes
• No
21. Do you have paresis or paralysis, scars, tumors, polyps, cysts, singing nodules in the larynx or vocal cords?
• Yes
• No
22. Do you often experience nervous tension?
• Often
• Rarely
• I do not feel
23. Do you use tobacco products?
• Yes
• No
24. Would you like to do voice production?
• Yes
• No
• I find it difficult to answer
25. Are you aware of who a phoniatrist and phonopedist is?
• Yes
• No
26. Do you know about ways to prevent voice disorders and voice hygiene?
• Yes
• No
• I find it difficult to answer
27. Are video master classes and courses on voice training and expressiveness in demand for you personally?
• Yes
• No
• I find it difficult to answer
Evaluation of the obtained sociological survey data allows us to make a general qualitative and quantitative analysis of the sought problem.
1. The number of respondents (PNU teachers) is 95 people.
2. The age of the respondents (over 60%) is from 35 to 55 years.
3. The average work experience of the respondents ranged from 10-30 years (66.3%), women - 76.8%, men - 23.2%.
4. 55.8% of teachers note frequent discomfort, change and fatigue of the voice.
5. Symptoms: sore throat 50.5% of participants, hoarseness 26.3% and hoarseness 40%.
6. Statistics of the total voice load: for the majority of respondents (54.7%) it was 6 or more hours.
7. Unhealthy voice changes 25.3% of the respondents noted during the first 5 years of professional activity, and 30.5% - after the first five years of work.
8. 49.5% of respondents experience physiological changes in their voice in the evening, at the end of the working day 23.2%, 27.4% experience discomfort during the working day.
9. General somatic factors affecting the state of voice health: (78.9%) suffer from colds no more than 2 times a year, 22.1% suffer from chronic respiratory diseases, thyroid diseases in 13.7% of respondents, 13 , 7% have ENT diseases, 51.6% of teachers often experience nervous tension.
10. The influence of bad habits on the health of the voice: the vast majority of teachers (91.6%) do not use tobacco products.
11. (98.9%) of the respondents consider their profession to be voice-speech, that is, they recognize the influence of voice on professional activity in general, and also recognize the importance of intonational expressiveness of speech in the activities of a teacher (98.9%).
12. 26.3% of teachers are not familiar with activities related to professional voice training, 67.4% of respondents are not aware of the methods of preventing voice disorders and hygiene of the voice.
13. 66.3% expressed interest in video master classes and courses on voice training and speech expressiveness and recognize the impact of problems with voice on professional activity.
According to the results of the study, it was found that in persons of speech professions, the main provoking factor causing voice pathology is excessive voice load, and it was also confirmed that the majority of teachers, although they experience voice health problems, do not take any effective measures to prevention of violations, the main reason for which is the lack of information on the rules for the prevention of voice disorders and voice hygiene.
Thus, as a result of the experimental-experimental study, reliable data were obtained on the functional state of the voice of higher school teachers, whose profession is associated with a large professional load, factors influencing the health of the voice were identified, and the need for preventive measures was updated.
1. Vasilenko Yu.S. Voice. Phoniatric aspects. - M. Energoizdat, 2002. - 408 p.
2. Lavrova E.V., Mikhalevskaya I.A. The value of the speech voice in the prevention of the occurrence of voice disorders / Collection of scientific papers. II Congress of the Russian Public Voice Academy. - M.: Granitsa, 2009. - P. 87-93.
3. Orlova O.S. Violation of the voice: textbook. allowance / O.S. Orlova. M.: AST: Astrel; Vladimir: VKT, 2008. - 220 p.
