the study of vocal fatigue symptoms in speech therapy students by focusing on in-turned and ex-turned students

Introduction: the voice is a professional tool for speech-language pathologists (slps).due to the daily professional use of voice, slps, especially novices in this professionare exposed to voice injuries and disorders. identifying high-risk vocal behaviors in thisgroup can prevent the spread of more serious laryngeal injuries. this study aimed toinvestigate voice fatigue symptoms in speech therapy students.materials and methods: in this study, 129 speech therapy students were divided into twomain groups of in-turns and ex-turns. in three sections of the semester (beginning, middle,and end), the vocal fatigue index (vfi) questionnaire and two auditory-perceptual voicescales were completed for both groups. the within-between comparisons were madeby considering other side factors, such as gender and students’ professional knowledgestatus in spss software v. 19.0.results: in the in-turns group, the mean score of vfi at the middle (p=0.025) and the end(p=0.010) of the semester were significantly higher than at the beginning of the semester.also, the mean score vfi of the in-turns at the middle and end of the semester were higherthan of the ex-turned speech therapy students (p=0.011). the effects of students’ genderand their knowledge status on the findings were not statistically significant (p>0.05).conclusion: this study showed that new vocal-speech behaviors related to clinicalactivities in the clinic environment of speech therapy can increase laryngeal tensions andvocal fatigue in in-turned speech therapy students.