Differences on Vocal and Communication Skills Before and After an Online Speech-Therapy Training

Objective: The recent years provided the possibility to look at communication in a broad point of view, not only regarding vocal quality, but the ability to communicate, and with technology, provide total online training to clients and patients. Besides that, as our therapy goal is to empower patients, the self-evaluation of their own development is a key outcome to state therapeutic effects. Thus, our goal is to provide the first data of the possible differences on self-perceived vocal performance and competence to communicate due to a total online Speech-Therapy training.

Methods: The present research is a pre/post study, bringing a secondary, documental, and retrospective data analysis of a private Speech-Therapy Clinic. This study was approved by the Ethics Committee of a Public Brazilian University. A total of 22 participants (14 female, 10 male; mean age: 34.6), voice professionals, underwent a Speech training aiming to improve their speech and communication abilities and skills. The training program consisted of eight online individual sessions, once a week, during eight weeks. Each training session included vocal exercises, speech performance tasks, vocal health education and counseling. Every session had the following chain: (1) initial conversation, (2) pre-training, (3) training, (4) homework. The homework training was supposed to be done three times a day. Before and after the training program, participants had to answer the Voice-Handicap Index-10 – VHI-10 and the Self-assessment of Communication Competence – SACCom, with 19 items related to the aspects of speaking and listening skills. Both protocols were tested and validated to Brazilian Portuguese. The results of these outcomes were compared and correlated between pre and post training by the group of participants.

Results: After the online training all participants had their communication abilities measured by the SACCom improved compared to the baseline (p< 0,001). 13 items differentiated the participants, with post-training improvement, including the "is your voice good and expressive?" item (p< 0,001). All the data had a medium positive correlation (Coef.: 0,512; p= 0,007), stating that the greater the perceived improvement, the higher SACCom score. The VHI-10 differentiated the scores before and after training, stating less handicap (p< 0,001) and more participants under the cutoff point (p= 0,02) post-training.

Conclusions: The online speech training showed up to be efficient and reliable to accomplish its goals on self-perceived vocal performance and competence to communicate. The VHI-10 and the SACCom are consistent outcome measures to this kind of training. After the training, the subjects had less self-perceived vocal handicap and more competence to communicate.