Voice change as a new measure of male pubertal timing: A study among Bolivian adolescents

Background: Age at menarche is often used to measure maturational tempo in girls. Unfortunately, no parallel marker exists for boys. It is suggested that voice change has a number of advantages as a marker of the timing and degree of male pubertal development. Aim: Traditional auxological methods ar...

Full description

Saved in:
Bibliographic Details
Published inAnnals of human biology Vol. 40; no. 3; pp. 209 - 219
Main Authors Hodges-Simeon, Carolyn R., Gurven, Michael, Cárdenas, Rodrigo A., Gaulin, Steven J. C.
Format Journal Article
LanguageEnglish
Published England Informa Healthcare 01.05.2013
Taylor & Francis
Subjects
adolescence
Adolescent
Body Height
Body Weight
Bolivia
Child
Female
formant dispersion
formants
fundamental frequency
Humans
Indians, South American
Male
peak height velocity
pitch
Puberty
Sex Characteristics
United States
Voice
Young Adult
Bolivia
United States
Online AccessGet full text

Cover

More Information
Summary:Background: Age at menarche is often used to measure maturational tempo in girls. Unfortunately, no parallel marker exists for boys. It is suggested that voice change has a number of advantages as a marker of the timing and degree of male pubertal development. Aim: Traditional auxological methods are applied to voice change in order to compare differential development both between (males vs females; Tsimane vs North American; better vs worse condition) and within (voice vs height; fundamental frequency vs formant structure) populations. Subjects and methods: Fundamental and formant frequencies, as well as height and weight, were measured for 172 Tsimane males and females, aged 8-23. Participants were assigned to 'better' or 'worse' condition based on a median split of height-for-age and weight-for-age z-scores. Results: Results support dramatic vocal changes in males. Peak voice change among Tsimane male adolescents occurs∼1 year later than in an age-matched North American sample. Achieved adult male voices are also higher in the Tsimane. Tsimane males in worse condition experience voice change more than 1 year later than Tsimane males in better condition. Conclusion: Voice change has a number of attractive features as a marker of male pubertal timing including its methodological and technical simplicity as well as its social salience to group members.
Bibliography:ObjectType-Article-1
SourceType-Scholarly Journals-1
ObjectType-Feature-2
content type line 23
ISSN:0301-4460
1464-5033
DOI:10.3109/03014460.2012.759622