Voice Difficulties
What are these difficulties characterised by?
Voice difficulties are characterised by the child having a voice that may sound different in quality, loudness or pitch, to those of their friends, brothers and sisters. When young children talk, their vocal cords vibrate together about 300 times a second. This vibration occurs using air from the lungs and small muscle adjustments in the voice box. If the vibration is forced or strained then the vocal cords can become sore and red.Â
How does this impact the child?
Voice difficulties can affect the intelligibility of the child, meaning that they may not be understood by an unfamiliar listener.Â
Straining of the vocal cords can cause inflammation which can be uncomfortable for the child to live with.
Some children may be unaware of this voice difficulty and it may not affect them. However some children may notice that they sound different to their friends and this may lower their self esteem. If the child becomes self conscious of their voice it may cause them to avoid speaking and miss out on spoken interactions.
How can ChatterBug support your child?
| The Speech and Language therapist will work with the child and try to find out what is causing or contributing to these particular voice difficulties. The therapist will then give advice on how to best support the child with their voice difficulties. There may be changes that will need to be made to the child’s lifestyle in order to ensure their voice is being taken care of and this will be discussed in your therapy sessions.Â
Good vocal hygiene will be a key aspect of all intervention, our knowledgeable SLT’s will provide helpful tips to ensure that the child knows how to look after their voice. Whilst our team can absolutely support with voice intervention and lifestyle changes to help with voice disorders and difficulties there are also a number of alternatives that may also be required e.g. medication, surgery. Our friendly team of therapists can support clients with onward referrals to ear, nose and throat teams as well as voice specialists where appropriate. Please note that before we can start intervention for voice difficulties the child/young person must have been seen by a ENT team. |
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