Peer acceptance and teacher preference toward children with voice problems

Abstract

Listeners’ perceptions toward children with communication disorders as well as the interpersonal experience of these children have been studied extensively by speech and language field and psychology field in the western countries. However, little is known about peers’ attitudes and social acceptance toward children with voice problems in the Chinese population. The current study examined the attitudes of peers and teachers toward children with different severity levels of voice problems; and evaluated how such attitudes could impact on the social acceptance of these children. Specifically, peer acceptance and teacher preference were investigated. Eighteen speakers (nine children with voice problems and nine vocally healthy children as controls) and 60 listeners (30 children and 30 teachers) participated in the study. Listeners were asked to provide attitude and acceptance ratings after listening to the voice samples of the speakers.

For both groups of listeners, children with dysphonic voices were given significantly lower scores (i.e., less favorable) than children with normal voices in all the attitude ratings and acceptance ratings (both groups ps < .001). Moreover, the more severe the voice problems, the less positive the attitude and acceptance ratings the speakers received from the listeners. The attitude ratings and acceptance ratings made by the children listeners and teacher listeners did not differ significantly from each other (ps > .05). The results suggested that children with dysphonic voices were not only perceived less favorably on all attitude ratings than children with normal voices. They were also less socially accepted by peers and teachers. These findings provided valuable information and insights to the parents, educators, and speech-language pathologists on the potential impacts of pediatric voice disorders on listeners’ perception and children’s interpersonal experience.