Characteristics and Professional Use of Voice in Street Children in Aracaju, Brazil

• Published in: Journal of voice Vol. 24; no. 4; pp. 435 - 440
• Main Authors: Sales, Neuza Josina, Gurgel, Ricardo Queiroz, Gonçalves, Maria Inês Rebelo, Cunha, Edílson, Barreto, Valeria Maria Prado, Neto, João Carlos Todt, D'Avila, Jeferson Sampaio
• Format: Journal Article
• Language: English
• Published: United States Mosby, Inc 01.07.2010
• Subjects: Adaptation, Psychological; Brazil - epidemiology; Child; Cross-Sectional Studies; Dysphonia; Dysphonia - diagnosis; Dysphonia - epidemiology; Dysphonia - psychology; Employment; Female; Hearing Disorders - epidemiology; Homeless Youth - psychology; Homeless Youth - statistics & numerical data; Humans; Incidence; Male; Music; Occupations; Otolaryngology; Professional voice; School children; Sound Spectrography; Speech Disorders - epidemiology; Street children; Voice; Voice characteristics; Voice Quality; Brazil; Dysphonia; School children; Street children; Professional voice; Voice characteristics
• ISSN: 0892-1997; 1873-4588
• DOI: 10.1016/j.jvoice.2008.12.007

Summary The objective of the study was to evaluate voice characteristics of children engaged in street selling, which involves an essentially professional use of voice in this population. A controlled cross-sectional study was carried out. A randomly chosen sample of 200 school children with a history of street selling assisted by public social services and 400 school children without this experience was selected. Seven- to 10-year-old children of both sexes were studied. Both groups were interviewed and given vocal assessment (auditory-perceptual assessment and spectrographic acoustic measures) and otorhinolaryngological evaluation (physical and videonasolaryngoscopic examination). Children with abnormal results in both groups were compared using χ2 (Chi-squared test). The significance level was established at 5% ( P < 0.05). Voice problems were detected more frequently in working children (106–53%) than in regular school children (90–22.5%). The control group achieved better school performance as more children in this group attend school regularly than street children, although age-for-grade deficit was similar. The control group had more access to medical visits (80–40%) and treatment with a doctor (34–17%). Language assessment has shown that the control group had more dysphonia (73–37%) and myofunctional orofacial disorders (20–10%). Street children had more normal voice but had more nasal disorders and greater glottal closure than the school control group. Voice disorders were present in both groups, but less frequently in street children. Although subject to inadequate living conditions, street children had better voice quality than the control group. An explanation could be that by adapting their voice professionally for selling goods in the streets, they developed adequate resilience to their difficult living conditions.