Children’s vocal behaviour in a pre-school environment and resulting vocal function

This study aims to shed some light onto the relationship between the degree of hoarseness in children’s voices observed at different times during a day in pre-school and different aspects of their speech behaviour. Behavioural aspects include speech activity, phonation time, F0 variation, speech intensity and the relationship between speech intensity and background noise intensity. The results show that children behave differently and that the same type of behaviour has a varied effect on the different children. It can be seen from two children with otherwise very similar speech behaviour, that the fact that one of them produces speech at a higher intensity level also brings about an increase of hoarseness by the end of the day in pre-school. The speech behaviour of the child with highest degree of hoarseness on the other hand cannot be observed to be putting an extreme load on the vocal system.