Main reasons that lead popular-music singing teachers to seek speech-language pathology assistance for their students

Abstract

Purpose: To identify the parameters that influences the decision of singing teachers to seek speech-language pathology (SLP) assistance for their students. Methods: The study sample comprised 48 popular-music singing teachers, male and female, aged 37.96 years on average. The participants responded to a 10 closed-question questionnaire prepared by the researchers via the SurveyMonkey platform. The questions referred to the reasons why singing teachers seek SLP assistance, as well as to the knowledge of these teachers regarding chronic hoarseness as a risk symptom to identify other lesions in the larynx. Results: Singing teachers seek SLP assistance for their students in the presence of hoarseness complaints and impaired speech sound articulation. The singing teachers assessed did not consider vocal tiredness complaint as a determining factor for referral to SLP evaluation. Most study participants were not aware that a hoarseness complaint for over 15 days can be indicative of larynx tumor. There was no influence of the variables age and time of professional experience in the referral to SLP assistance. Conclusion: Most of the singing teachers who participated in this study sought SLP assistance for their students when they presented hoarseness complaints and impaired speech sound articulation.