Search for Past Events and Articles Here:
WVD 2024 Parody from NCVS
World Voice Day 2025
Dear World Voice community! WVD 2025 campaign is on!
The new motto is
EMPOWER YOUR VOICE!
Chosen by the Voice Committee of the American Academy of Otolaryngology–Head and Neck Surgery. You’ll find the new graphics developed by our World Voice Day Website team at the Graphics section. Feel free to use it at your convenience. We’re looking forward to receive all the incredible events you are all preparing!
Robert T. Sataloff, Johan Sundberg, Mara Behlau,
Ian DeNolfo, Mauro Fiuza and Thays Vaiano
WVD Committee
WVD Event Title | Singing and speech fluency: Pause reduction in two neurological disorders (Major Depressive Disorder and Parkinson's Disease) and one genetic disorder (Down Syndrome) |
---|---|
Type of Event | Lecture |
Your Name | Pilar Lirio |
Date | 2025-04-02 |
Start Time | 11:30 |
End Time | 12:00 |
Event Address | 32 Calle Zamora Salamanca, Castilla y León 37002 Spain Map It |
Website | usal.es |
Your Email Address | Email hidden; Javascript is required. |
Details of your World Voice Day Event | A lecture about clinical singing. The impact of singing-based intervention on speech fluency across three populations: Major Depressive Disorder (MDD), Parkinson’s Disease (PD), and Down Syndrome (DS). Using a pre-post intervention design, we analyzed objective measures (speech rate, pause frequency/duration) and perceptual evaluations from 12 naive judges. Results demonstrated significant improvements: a 218% increase in words-per-minute (p<0.001, d=2.1) and 90.2% reduction in intra-lexical pauses (p<0.01) in DS, with comparable gains in MDD and PD groups. Perceptual evaluations showed 50% improvement in fluency ratings (velocity, rhythm regularity, segmentation) for isolated phrases (ICC=0.78-0.84), with more modest but significant gains in paragraph reading. Notably, comprehension improved only in connected speech (+20%, p=0.014). The intervention's efficacy appears mediated by different mechanisms across conditions – motor planning enhancement in PD, respiratory control in DS, and prosodic modulation in MDD. While single-case limitations apply to the DS cohort, consistent effects across neurological and genetic conditions suggest singing may activate compensatory neural pathways for fluency. These findings support singing as a transdiagnostic tool for speech rehabilitation, warranting controlled trials with larger samples. |