Effects of warm-up exercises on self-assessed vocal effort

Abstract

Purpose

An elevated sense of vocal effort due to increased vocal demand is frequently reported by patients with voice disorders. However, effects of vocal warm-up on self-assessed vocal effort have not been thoroughly examined. A recently developed version of the Borg CR-10 Scale facilitates vocal effort assessments, following different vocal warm-up tasks.

Methods

Effects of a short (5 min) vocal warm-up on self-assessed vocal effort was evaluated using the Borg CR-10. Twenty-six vocally healthy participants (13F, 13M, mean age 22.6), in two randomised groups, underwent sessions of either reading aloud or semi-occluded vocal tract exercises (SOVTE). Vocal effort was evaluated at four times: pre to post vocal warm-up and two silence periods. Non-parametric analyses for repeated measures and calculations for within-subject standard deviation were applied in group comparisons.

Results

Following vocal warm-up, vocal effort ratings were increased to a statistically significant degree in both intervention groups compared to baseline ratings. After a 5-min rest in silence following completion of the vocal warm-up, vocal effort ratings returned to baseline levels in both groups. The drop in ratings immediately post warm-up compared to 5 min later was statistically significant for the SOVTE group.

Conclusions

Five minutes of vocal warm-up caused increased self-perceived vocal effort in vocally healthy individuals. The increased sense of effort dissipated faster following warm-up for the SOVTE group. When using the Borg CR-10 scale to track vocal effort, it may be beneficial to apply experience-based anchors.

Keywords:

• Vocal effort
• vocal warm-up
• self-evaluation, Borg CR-10
• SOVT

Acknowledgements

The authors express their gratitude to all participants’ participation in this study. We would also like to thank the two independent reviewers, whose comments improved this manuscript considerably.

Disclosure statement

No potential conflict of interest was reported by the author(s).

Additional information

Funding

The research reported in this publication was supported by the National Institute of Deafness and Other Communication Disorders of the National Institutes of Health under Award Number R01DC012315 (P.I. Eric Hunter). The content is solely the responsibility of the authors and does not necessarily represent the official views of the National Institutes of Health.

Notes on contributors

Susanna Whitling

Susanna Whitling, SLP, PhD is a registered Speech and Language Pathologist and a researcher and lecturer of Speech and Language Pathology at the Department of Logopedics, Phoniatrics and Vocology, Faculty of Medicine, Lund University, Lund, Sweden. She specializes in occupational voice use, treatment and risk management.

Qin Wan

Qin Wan, PhD is a faculty and researcher in the Department of Rehabilitation at East China Normal University in Shanghai, People's Republic of China. She specializes in speech production in children with specialty vocal onset.

Mark L. Berardi

Mark l. Berardi, PhD is a Postdoc researcher in the Vocal Control and Vocal Well-Being Laboratory at University Hospital Bonn, Bonn, Germany. He specializes in acoustics, voice acoustics, and machine learning.

Eric J. Hunter

Eric J. Hunter, MS, PhD is the Associate Dean for Research in the College of Communication Arts and Sciences as well as a Professor in the Department of Communicative Sciences and Disorders at Michigan State University, East Lansing, Michigan, United States of America. He specializes in voice signal processing, voice production, and voice modeling.