Voice therapy in paediatric dysphonia

Abstract

Objective: To review the literature about the current available methods for voice therapy in pediatric patients affected by dysphonia.

Methods: All available articles published in pubmed concerning voice therapy in pediatric dysphonia were considered. Articles not available in English were excluded.

Results: Dysphonia is an extremely common voice disorder in paediatric population, involving up to around 20% of children from 7 to 16 years old. The causes of dysphonia are extremely different, from neurologic disorders to rare syndromic pathologies. Above all, phonotrauma is considered the most common cause of dysphonia, frequently determining the presence of benign lesions of the vocal cords, the nodules. The treatment can be medical, surgical or rehabilitative, but voice therapy is crucial regardless of the chosen approach. All authors highlight the crucial role of voice therapy in order to enhance positive vocal habits and establish correct vocal motor patterns. The role of family and school teachers is extremely important in the rehabilitation in order to limit the progression of the dysphonia or even treat it.

Conclusion: Multiple voice therapy methods are available in the literature, but an organic analysis of these methods is still lacking. The present review takes into account the voice therapy methods detected in the literature highlighting the relative advantages and disadvantages of each of them.

Keywords:

• Paediatric dysphonia
• voice therapy
• paediatric voice disorder
• dysphonia

Disclosure statement

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