Electronic Theses and Dissertations

Date

2023

Document Type

Thesis

Degree Name

Master of Arts

Department

Speech-Language Pathology

Committee Chair

Miriam van Mersbergen

Committee Member

Lynda Feenaughty

Committee Member

Katherine Mendez

Committee Member

Lisa Vinney

Abstract

Individuals who engage in larger amounts of voice use have greater vocal loads, which may contribute to the development of benign vocal fold lesions (BVFL). The Personality traits of extroversion and talkativeness has been a predominant theory about increased vocal load in those with BVFL. Ambulatory monitoring has verified increased vocal use in those with BVFL, adding intensity and fundamental frequency to describe vocal load. Three vocally healthy women and three women with BVFL provided conversation and narrative language samples that underwent language analysis. Descriptive analyses of language samples revealed those with BVFL used up to twice as many words in conversation compared to healthy controls. Those with BVFL also presented with more determiners, whereas healthy controls used more adverbs during conversation language samples. Findings suggest that those with BVFL do indeed use more words to communicate and addressing aspects of communication style may be important in reducing vocal load.

Comments

Data is provided by the student.

Library Comment

Dissertation or thesis originally submitted to ProQuest

Notes

Open Access

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