Recently in Verbal, Voice Category

Prevention is powerful medicine!  Some occupations rely on voice more than others, and teachers lead that list.

Teachers tend to spend more time speaking than most professionals, putting them at a greater risk for hurting their voices.

Teachers are 32 times more likely to experience voice problems, according to one study. And unlike singers or actors, teachers can't take a day off when their voices hurt.

Now a new study by the National Center for Voice and Speech (NCVS) reveals how teachers use their voices at work and at home and uncovers differences between male and female teachers. Its findings will be presented at a meeting of the 2009 Acoustical Society of America (ASA).

Eric Hunter, deputy director of the NCVS, and colleagues equipped teachers with the NCVS voice dosimeter, a device which captures voicing characteristics such as pitch and loudness rather than actual speech. The dosimeter sampled their voices 33 times per second. The researchers analyzed 20 million of these samplings which were collected during waking hours over a 14 day period for each teacher.

Female teachers used their voices about 10 percent more than males when teaching and 7 percent more when not teaching.

The data also indicated that female teachers speak louder than male teachers at work.

"These results may indicate an underlying reason for female teachers' increased voice problems," writes Hunter.

All of the teachers spoke about 50 percent more when at work, at both a higher pitch and a volume (about 3 decibels louder).

Instead of resting their overworked voices at home, the teachers also spent significant amounts of time speaking outside of work.

Me thinks it's time to let the students do some of the talking!

I've picked up bits of studies over the years that report stats hinting that students have very few opportunities to speak in the classroom -- maybe it's time to create some new best practices that are good for the children's development of communication and social skills...and time to give the teacher a rest!

SOURCE: 2009 Newswise, Inc