A number of studies have been made to examine several aspects of voice production in individuals with different types of hearing impairments. Most of the studies were made to explore the impact that hearing aids have for people with severe or congenital hearing impairment. So far it has been confirmed that there are changes regarding voice production in these individuals. A group that has not been investigated regarding voice production to a larger extent are hearing aid users with an acquired hearing impairment. In the present study the voice production of seven individuals, four men and three women, with a moderate acquired hearing impairment is examined. The individuals had an age span ranging from 55-71 years and had used hearing-aids for one year at the most. The participants were recorded as they completed three different tasks; reading aloud, spontaneous speech and production of sustained vowels. These tasks were performed twice; with and without hearing aids. An acoustic analysis of the recordings was performed in order to examine possible changes in mean fundamental frequency and vocal effort. Analysis on an individual level shows that throughout the different tasks, no participant demonstrated constant, audible differences regarding both fundamental frequency and vocal effort. However there were noticeable changes for a few participants in some of the tasks. Since the differences for most of the participants were negligible and inconsistent, no impact of the hearing aids or compensatory strategies was seen.

The purpose of this study was to examine factors supporting college mathematics success. First, effect of a brief high school orientation to mathematical technologies used for college placement testing was examined. Secondly, the voice of participants in this orientation was heard. Finally, bootstrapped orientation data were presented to teachers and instructors of introductory statistics courses as a scaffold to their technological pedagogical content knowledge (TPCK) as these teachers and instructors strive to actively engage students to achieve college mathematics success. Many entering college students are placed into developmental mathematics classes based on scores from college placement assessments that allow extremely limited use of calculating technology and have various time constraints. Students in a rural central Texas 3A high school that were enrolled in Algebra II course were given pre- and post- tests in Arithmetic and Algebra. Each 20-minute test contained 15 mathematical content questions and one qualitative question. The post-test was given approximately a week after the pre-test. During the week, students were provided time to explore review material using only pencil and paper for the arithmetic review, and a four-function calculator on the algebra review questions. Effects of the orientation were analyzed using mean scores, confidence intervals, effect size, and GLM for whole-group and sub-groups. A paired samples t-test was calculated. These effects were discussed. A case study involving participants of the orientation was conducted. Twelve participants were interviewed after each had entered college. Five themes emerged from these interviews: (1) Knowledge of College Mathematics, (2) Technology and Mathematics, (3) Mathematics Tests/Assessments, (4) Teaching and Learning Mathematics, and (5) Mathematical Experiences, Hopes and Dreams. Each theme is discussed. Using Microsoft Excel, bootstrapping is presented to instructors of first year introductory statistics courses in support of student success as instructors’ technological pedagogical content knowledge is developed. A course project demonstrating and developing application of computational technology by bootstrapping confidence intervals at the 95 % level using Microsoft Excel is presented. Data from the orientation were further analyzed in the bootstrapping project. Confidence intervals were empirically calculated from bootstrapped resamples of the mean. The number of resamples used was 250 at each of three levels: Over-sampling, at-sampling, and under-sampling. Graphs of bootstrapped confidence intervals, using the Rule of Eye 4, showed statistically significant differences between pre-test and post-test scores for all pairs of data sets.

Term fetuses show differential heart rate responses to their mother’s vs. a female stranger’s voice and newborns show a preference for their mother’s vs. a female stranger’s voice, indicating recognition/learning of the mother’s voice before birth. However, fetal response to the father’s voice is unknown and was examined in this study. Forty mother-fetal pairs and the fathers participated. Parents were audio recorded reading a story. Each fetus was presented with the recordings using the following 3 min periods: pre-voice no-sound, voice (mother or father, counterbalanced over subjects), post-voice no-sound. Following a 20 min delay, the opposite voice was delivered. Voices were presented about 10 cm above the maternal abdomen at an average of 95 dB A; heart rate and body movements were recorded continuously. After delivery, newborn head-turning to three, 20 s trials of each parent’s voice (counter balanced over subjects) delivered at an average of 80 dB A was observed. Results showed that fetuses responded to the mother’s and father’s voices, demonstrating a heart rate increase to both voices compared to no heart rate change during the pre-voice baseline period. Fetuses showed no heart rate response to their mother reading a story but showed a heart rate increase when her audio recording was played. After birth, as newborns, they turned their heads more often towards their mother’s voice and away from their father’s voice. It was concluded that both the mother’s and father’s voice can capture and sustain the fetuses’ attention and that newborns prefer their mother’s vs. their father’s voice. / Thesis (Master, Nursing) -- Queen's University, 2010-09-03 17:23:13.638

This paper investigates in 2 studies the role of invulnerability in predicting young workers’ intentions to speak up about hazards. I propose a model in which perceptions of hazardous work are related to safety voice intentions via fear of injury, and that higher invulnerability buffers (a) the extent to which potential hazards generate fear of injury and (b) the extent to which fear of injury motivates voice. In Study 1, I randomly assigned participants (n = 115, aged 15-25) to an unsafe or safe scenario. Participants with lower invulnerability reported higher safety voice intentions across all levels of fear of injury. Participants with higher invulnerability reported as high safety voice intentions only when fear of injury was high, and reported much lower safety voice intentions than those with low invulnerability when fear of injury was low. Study 2 replicates this model using field data from young workers (n = 67).

No abstract available. / Thesis (M.Mus.)-University of Natal, Durban, 1988.

No description available.

Purpose: An open mouth approach is used in voice therapy for enhancing speech and voice production and relaxing the laryngeal musculature. The acoustic and physiological consequences of an open jaw posture, however, have not been clearly understood due to a paucity of cross-system studies taking the age effect into consideration. The major aims of this study are twofold (1) to examine if the geriatric voice may be improved using an “open jaw” posture and (2) if an aging effect on the voice of normal healthy adults can be detected through acoustic and physiological measures Method: The main part of this study involved simultaneous multi-channel voice recordings obtained from 85 healthy adults aged between 38 and 93 years. A convenience sampling strategy was used to recruit at least five females and five males in each of four age groups, 35-59 years (35+), 60-69 (60+), 70-79 (70+), and above 80 (80+). For simultaneous acoustic, electroglottographic (EGG), and jaw displacement recordings, participants were asked to perform two tasks which included a sustained vowel task and a sentence production task. The sustained vowel task involved sustaining the vowel /a/ in five different conditions, an isolated vowel /a/ produced at normal, low, and high pitch levels and the vowel /a/ initiated with a consonant (/m/ and /h/). The sentence production task involved production of the sentence 'We saw two cars,' containing the vowels /i, ɔ, u, a/. For simultaneous airflow-EGG recordings, participants were asked to sustain the vowel /a/ at normal pitch. For simultaneous airflow-air pressure-EGG recordings, participants were asked to repeat /pa/ five times in one breath. Participants were asked to perform all of the tasks using two jaw postures (normal and open). A series of univariate analysis of variances were used to identify instrumental measures sensitive for discriminating between the four age groups and the two jaw postures. A follow-up perceptual study was conducted to determine the effect of an open jaw posture on vowel intelligibility and voice clarity. A quota sampling strategy was used to recruit 40 normal hearing participants, including 20 females (age range = 18-42 years, mean = 25.3, SD = 7.9) and 20 males (age range = 18-47, mean = 23.6, SD = 6.7). These listeners were presented with vowels segmented from the sentences recorded in the first experiment and asked to perform a vowel identification and a voice clarity discrimination task. The vowel samples were taken from 40 speakers, with five females and five males in each of the four age groups (35+, 60+, 70+, and 80+). The percentages of correct vowel identification for voices produced with normal and open jaw postures were compared. The percentages of vowels judged as 'clearer' in a normal-open jaw contrast pairs were also calculated for comparison. Results: Significant age group effects were found in this study for both genders on fundamental frequency (F0), voice onset time (VOT) (/ka/), open quotient (OQ), and speed quotient (SQ), with additional age differences detected for females on %jitter, %shimmer, signal-to-noise ratio (SNR), and the second formant frequency (F2), and for males a significant age group effect was found on VOT (/tu/). Results for both females and males revealed significant open jaw posture effects on F0, F2, VOT (/ka/), MFR, SPL and vowel space area. In addition, for females significant posture effects were found on F1, subglottal pressure and the H1-H2 amplitude difference, and for males, significant posture effects were found on %jitter and VOT-/tu/. Results from the follow-up perceptual study revealed that an open jaw posture was associated with better vowel identification and better voice clarity. Conclusions: A selection of instrumental measures was shown to be useful for detecting voice changes due to aging. Instrumental and perceptual evidence was found that an open jaw posture was associated with positive changes in vocal behaviours, including improved phonatory stability, vocal power, and voice clarity.

Corticosteroids are the most potent and reliable of the available agents among the anti-inflammatory drugs, and have assumed a major role in the management of asthma. This has subsequently resulted in the global widespread use of inhaled corticosteroids (ICS). A variety of studies have been undertaken to examine the effects of ICS on voice production among people with asthma. Most research suggests that the long-term use of ICS has a negative effect on voice production. However, the results of these studies are limited because of the reliance upon examining an asthmatic population and not consistently recording the dose prescribed. As a result, one cannot exclude that some of the voice problems may have been previously caused by asthma and thus, the contributing effects of ICS are obscured. Therefore, an ideal approach to examine the influence of ICS on voice is to test its short-term effects on healthy individuals, using a specific ICS (Fluticasone Propionate) at a fixed dose (1000 µg/Day). Thirty healthy adults (15 females & 15 males) aged between 18 to 30 years participated in this study. All participants were non-smokers with no history of speech, language or voice disorder. No participants had a history of asthma, respiratory illness hospital admission or inhaler use within the past 3 months. All participants followed the treatment regime often prescribed by physicians (in Canterbury region) for treating asthma (500 µg in morning & 500 µg in evening). Each participant self administered (inhaled) two puffs of ICS in the morning and again in the evening over a six day period. Voice samples were audio-recorded prior to undergoing the ICS regime, at various points during the ICS regime, and at the conclusion of ICS regime. Each participant’s audio-recorded samples were submitted for acoustic analysis using a commercially available speech analysis system (CSL 4300B, Kay Elemetrics, 1994). Three measures were performed, (1) vocal fundamental frequency (F0), (2) long-time spectral analysis (LTAS) and (3) formant frequency and formant frequency bandwidth. The results of this study indicate that ICS does have an effect on acoustic properties of voice. These effects were more evident in connected speech compared to isolated vowel productions. In particular, the spectral tilt and first spectral peak of continuous speech samples were found to change from baseline. The current results are discussed in regard to the phonatory deterioration associated with ICS use. The present study provides a framework for developing ICS treatment for respiratory disease in the phase of minimizing adverse effects on voice.

In most New Zealand schools, transition to school programmes are introduced based on adult perceptions aimed at avoiding negative experiences and assisting children in a successful transition to school, yet they run the risk of ‘over managing’ a child’s experience. This research considers how young children perceive the up and coming ‘rite of passage’ of ‘starting school’. Through placing an emphasis on ‘children’s voice’, it explores their expectations, feelings and understandings of school before and after starting. The study follows six children (two boys and four girls, aged from 4 years eight months to 4 years ten months at the start of the study) for approximately two school terms on their journey from an Early Childhood Centre to a primary school. A range of ‘child friendly’ methods were used to gather their understandings. Children’s ‘school comments’ were recorded by their mothers during their transition. Interviews were conducted with three teachers regarding their philosophies and practices of starting school. The findings identified three main themes in children’s initial knowledge about school. The children sourced further knowledge by asking their parents about any concerns or queries as they arose. They also expressed a need to prepare themselves for school. The children gained further understanding of school throughout their transition but did not truly grasp the concept of what school was about until they became ‘school kids’ themselves. The implications of these findings are discussed for transition to school practices.

I investigated the problem of why some students do not implement the feedback they are given, when the feedback they receive is formulated in accordance with what we know about best practice in the giving of feedback. I was interested in exploring the factors which may influence students as they do or do not take some form of action to ‘close the gap’ between the standard they have attained and the standard they need to reach. I worked with seven Year 8 boys who were enrolled at an intermediate school in the South Island of New Zealand. The study is qualitative because the methodologies associated with that paradigm are more likely to provide insights into the problem, situated as it is in the experience of students in a classroom setting. I used phenomenography to identify the qualitatively different ways in which the participants viewed the importance and helpfulness of feedback as well as identifying the factors which influenced their acceptance or rejection of the feedback received from their classroom teacher. The categories I identified included supporting progress towards short- and long-term learning goals; the effect of feedback on personal attitudes towards learning; the relationship between the student and the teacher; the type and timing of feedback; the perceived ownership of the work to which the feedback related; and the conditions and understandings of the student. I discussed each of these and formed a phenomenographic outcome space for each of the three basic areas of importance, helpfulness, and factors affecting response. I then used a case approach to prepare case reports on two of the participants, in order to show how the categories identified through the phenomenographic analysis might be manifested in individuals as well as to allow the voices of the students to be heard. I found that each individual embodies a unique combination of the categories, and that it is this unique profile which affects his or her reception and subsequent use of feedback. I then combined the three phenomenographic outcome spaces to form a model of feedback, arranged in four levels, which may be of interest to classroom teachers as they endeavour to improve the learning outcome of the students through tailoring the feedback they give to them. I illustrated the potential use of the model by mapping onto it the profile of the two boys included in the case reports. The differences in, and similarities of, responses of the two boys to feedback are easily discerned. I discussed how these similarities and differences may offer some explanation for differing responses to feedback. To a certain extent the boys have similar outlooks, and may respond in similar ways to feedback which matches with these outlooks. However, at a deeper level, their differences are marked. Feedback which matches the preferences of one is not likely to match those of the other. I argue that in such a case one may accept and act on the feedback while the other may not. I have identified some areas for further research and development which could build on these findings. These include the need to explore the views of girls and other groups of boys on this subject, together with undertaking a project which allows the academic progress of individuals to be tracked once their preferences were identified and mapped onto the model. It would also be useful to construct a suitable instrument for classroom teachers to use for mapping the preferences of their own class members, and to identify any differences in the modifications to their feedback processes which teachers may make to their classroom practice following their use of such an instrument.