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Vocal abuse

© Schatze Rasmussen

Vocal abuse is very common in this country as well as internationally. How often have you heard a person "lose their voice" or hear a voice that sounds rough and "sandpapery"? I hear these a lot! But then again I have a trained ear and I am more apt to pay attention to them. I hear it occur on the street, on the playground, at sporting events and even during presidential campaigns!

Vocal abuse, put plain and simply, is a set of behaviors a person engages in which adversely affect the quality or sound of one's voice. These behaviors are done both consciously or unconsciously. They can occur due to both social and health reasons and unfortunately many of them become habit unless a person makes a conscious choice to change their behaviors. Without changing these behaviors, serious complications can result. Continual "misuse of the voice" or vocal abuse can lead to chronic laryngitis or swelling of the vocal chords and possible nodules or scab-like protrusions on the chords. Sure this can make speaking difficult, but this may even lead to the possibility of pre-cancerous cells forming on the chords such as Leukoplakia. Therefore, speech/language pathologists across the world attempt to educate everyone that vocal abuse and misuse is no laughing matter.

Vocal abuse most often occurs from screaming, coughing or clearing one's throat. People talk louder than they should also for many different reasons. They have a job that is located in a noisy environment and they must raise their voice to be heard. Children playing on the playground yell at their friends to be heard over all the other children, especially if their friends are a long ways away. (Young males between the ages of 4 and 9 have the highest rate of vocal abuse.) A person with a scratchy throat from a cold or other infection must try to speak louder even though they can only whisper just to be understood sometimes. Or they cough hard and loudly. (Teenage girls also have a high incidence of vocal abuse.) Cheerleaders are often performing verbally as well as physically during loud sporting events to help pep up their teams. Sometimes people just plain old talk too much!! Remember President Bill Clinton on the campaign trail and during the early years of his presidency? His voice sounded terrible!! Thank goodness he finally hired a speech therapist to work with him to identify those behaviors that caused the trouble for his voice.

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