Interference of background experience on agreement of perceptive-auditory analysis of neutral and dysphonic voices

Abstract

Introduction: Voice has a multidimensional evaluation, and therefore must be analyzed in its different aspects. Currently, in clinical practice, the most commonly used is the perceptive-auditory analysis, which is the golden evaluation of vocal quality. It is a subjective test that bases itself mainly on the impression of the evaluator on the patient’s voice, causing the results to be heavily influenced by the evaluator’s background experience in this type of evaluation. Objective: to analyze the interference of the evaluator’s background experience on the results of the perceptive-auditory voice analysis. Methods: transversal analytic observational study in which six speech therapists with different levels of expertise on the test evaluated 55 emissions in connected speech and sustained vowel, utilizing the GRBASI scale. In order to analyze the agreement and discordance between the evaluators the AC1 statistical calculation was utilized. Results: The background experience of the speech therapists does not interfere in the agreement of the intra-rater evaluation on both speech tasks. The inter-rater agreement is greater between individuals in the most experienced group on both tasks, although regarding connected speech a greater agreement was observed between members of the least experienced group regarding asthenic and tension parameters than in the most experienced group. Conclusion: the background experience of speech therapists does not interfere in the intra-rater agreement, but it impacts positively on the inter-rater agreement, suggesting that the background experience in this analysis tends to standardize the auditory judgment process of dysphonic voices.