SLPOtherJournal of voice : official journal of the Voice Foundation2025

The Adaption to Online Synchronous Teaching and Voice Fatigue: Acoustic and Clinical Data.

Karina Evgrafova, Natalia Sokolova, Nikolay Shvalev

PMID 36990863

WHAT IT FOUND

University teachers showed more voice fatigue signs during online pandemic teaching, including higher pitch and creak.

After partly returning to classroom or hybrid teaching, fatigue improved but did not fully return to prepandemic levels.

Key findings

01In the pandemic and postpandemic studies, 10 female university teachers recorded their own voices before and after teaching.

02The pandemic data showed lower wellbeing, activity, and mood rates than the prepandemic and postpandemic data, and postpandemic acoustic values were closer to prepandemic values.

03Fatigued speech showed higher mean fundamental frequency, and laryngealized segments were longest during the pandemic and reduced in the postpandemic period.

STILL TO COME

How it was doneWhat they foundWhat it means for SLPs

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What it does not show

The pandemic and postpandemic group included 10 female teachers, so it says little about male voice professionals or other occupations. The teachers recorded themselves on mobile phones outside a studio, and the paper notes unavoidable differences in subjects and recording conditions across periods. The study did not assign teaching modes or test a voice intervention, so it cannot show which factor reduced fatigue. The supplied text does not report dropouts or whether the same teachers were followed across all periods. The authors' explanations for hypotonic dysphonia and adaptation use phrases such as we believe, so they are interpretations rather than measured effects.

The easy way to misread this

Do not read the postpandemic improvement as proof that classroom or hybrid teaching alone reduced vocal fatigue. The study did not assign teaching modes, and recording conditions, microphone use, posture, stress, and self-reported voice strategies changed together.

Summarised by AI from the full paper, without a clinician reviewing it. Check it against the source before it changes what you do. Read it on PubMed →