Acoustic voice analysis: effect of an audio-visual training for speech therapy undergraduates Análise vocal acústica: efeito do treinamento auditivo-visual para graduandos de Fonoaudiologia

Purpose: To verify the effectiveness of a training for acoustic voice assessment with undergraduate students of Speech-Language Pathology. Methods: Study conducted with 14 undergraduate students of Speech-Language Pathology who participated in six theoretical/practical weekly encounters, whose total duration was four hours and a half. Basic concepts of acoustic voice assessment was performed; we used spectrographic analysis to each parameter, visually and auditory. In order to verify the proposal’s effectiveness, the undergraduate students assessed before and after de training, the measures of automatic extraction of the evaluation measures and also aspects of narrowband spectrograph of 15 voices, normal and disordered in varying degrees. We considered the performance of students, before and after the training comparing their mistakes and correct scores to a previous analysis performed by a specialist with Kappa index >0.70. To compare the results obtained by the undergraduate students in the two instances McNemar test was performed. Results: For all parameters analyzed the average of correct scores was higher after the training, as well as the overall average (24.2% before and 93.0% after). Conclusion: The developed training was effective for the learning of undergraduate students, and may be included into subjects which involve concepts of voice assessment and also might be transformed into teaching material available to other groups.