Comparision of the Voice Characteristics of Speech and Language Therapy and Audiology Department Female Students with Acoustic Voice Analysis

Introduction: University students are shown among one of the foremost groups from the aspect of vocal abuse. Speech and language therapy (SLT) students, during their studies, are required to have courses on speech, language, and voice production, anatomy and physiology, voice disorders and treatment. In this study, acoustic voice analysis result of SLT, and audiology department students is compared with the assumption that the awareness of SLT students on vocal abuse could be higher than that of audiology students as a result of the education SLT students have. Method: The aim of this study was to compare the acoustic analysis results of first, second, and third year female students in speech and language therapy undergraduate program (SLTUP), 1 Sorumlu Yazar, Ar？. G？r., üsküdar üniversitesi, [email protected] Prof. Dr., Voicest Klini？i, [email protected] Stajyer DKT, üsküdar üniversitesi, [email protected] Stajyer DKT, üsküdar üniversitesi, [email protected] Stajyer DKT, üsküdar üniversitesi, [email protected] Stajyer DKT, üsküdar üniversitesi, [email protected] third year female students in audiology undergraduate program (AUP) using Multi-Dimentional Voice Program (MDVP) (KayPENTAX, 2008). The participants of this study include 21 first year, 23 second year, and 22 third year SLTUP students, and 16 AUP students (see Table 1). Voice records were taken in üsküdar University Speech and Language Therapy Phonetic Lab using MDVP (KayPENTAX, 2008). The participants were asked to produce /a/ phonation for 5 seconds, and 3 middle seconds of each record were analyzed. Results and discussion: The results showed that there was a significant difference between F0 results of third year SLTUP and third year AUP students (Table 2); significant difference on F0, jitter (%), Pitch Perturbation Quotient (PPQ), Amplitude Perturbation Quotient (APQ) results of second year SLTUP and third year AUP students (see Table 3); significant difference on F0, jitter (%) and, PPQ results of first year SLTUP and third year AUP students (see Table 4). The results of the study revealed that SLTUP students have better jitter (%), PPQ, APQ results in comparison with AUP students. These results seem to confirm the idea that as a result of the education on voice disorders, vocal misuse, appropriate voice use, and vocal health that SLTUP students have been given, first and second year SLT students have better better jitter (%), PPQ, APQ values compared to third year AUP students. However, the fact that there was no significant difference between