Viveka Lyberg Åhlander

• Professor PhD Speech Language Pathology
• Head of Department at Åbo Akademi University

Purpose. People with acquired neurogenic Communication Disorders (PwCD) experience reduced satisfaction in healthcare environments, possibly relating to communication difficulties. Communication Partner Training might improve communication success. The purpose of the scoping review was to map the literature about educational experiences in teaching...

Audio description (AD) serves as a vital means to make visual media accessible to non-sighted and visually impaired audiences. This study systematically investigates the impact of narrative specificity and voice quality on imageability and comprehension in both sighted and non-sighted populations. Twenty non-sighted participants, including congenit...

Poor acoustic conditions in learning spaces have a detrimental effect on the speaker´s health and constitutes a risk factor for voice disorders. Previous research indicate that an acoustic refurbishment of the learning space has the potential to increase well-being and decrease voice related health problems among teachers, but the research is scarc...

Audio description (AD) plays a crucial role in making audiovisual media accessible to people with a visual impairment, enhancing their experience and understanding. This study employs an event segmentation task to examine how people without sight perceive and segment narrative events in films with AD, compared to sighted viewers without AD. Two AD...

Background Communication is a key tool in the nursing profession. It is known that listeners are sensitive to the speaker's voice and interpret the speaker's intentions primarily from the non‐verbal signal conveyed. Aim To map and discuss the current state of knowledge and research evidence on professional voice use in health and nursing care. De...

Teachers’ gaze and school children’s language proficiency play a role for listening comprehension in the classroom. The influence of multimodal conditions on listening comprehension may be hard to study in a systematic manner with real speakers. The aim was to test the concept and feasibility of studying the influence of a speakers on passage compr...

This study investigates speech production under various room acoustic conditions in virtual environments, by comparing vocal behavior and the subjective experience of speaking in four real rooms and their audio-visual virtual replicas. Sex differences were explored. Males and females (N = 13) adjusted their voice levels similarly to room acoustic c...

The present study aimed to increase understanding of how singing activities may be initiated in primary school, and what support and assistance teachers require to conduct singing activities as an integrated part of the school day. Five music teachers participated in a focus group interview. The following main themes were identified: 1) pedagogical...

Audio description (AD) serves as a vital means to make visual media accessible to non-sighted and visually impaired audiences. This study systematically investigates the impact of narrative specificity and voice quality on imageability and comprehension in both sighted and non-sighted populations. Twenty non-sighted participants, including congenit...

Aims Social participation is important for general health and quality of life among older adults. Currently, research concerning the association between stuttering and social participation among older adults with larger data sets is scarce. The aim of this population-based cross-sectional study was to investigate the association between stuttering...

Audio description (AD) serves a critical role in making film narratives accessible to visually impaired audiences, aiming to enhance their viewing experience and comprehension. One method to assess the comprehension of film narratives, is through an event segmentation task, wherein participants delineate the narrative unfolding into distinct meanin...

Purpose Altered auditory feedback research aims to identify methods to strengthen speakers' awareness of their own voicing behaviors, diminish their perception of vocal fatigue, and improve their voice production. This study aims to compare the effects of two bone conduction devices that provide altered auditory feedback. Method Twenty participant...

Background: Continued professional development (CPD) is required for updated skills and knowledge. This study evaluates the efficacy of a CPD programme for mainstream school teachers. Aims: In an 11-week intervention programme, speech-language therapists (SLTs) presented the participating teachers with whole-class teaching techniques aimed at cr...

Common health issues have been less examined in studies of early language development, particularly in relation to the child’s sex. Respiratory tract infections, often complicated by acute otitis media, are common in children during the first years of life, when early vocabulary development takes place. The present study, conducted in Finland, aime...

Aim: The aim of this study was to investigate how otherwise healthy older adults with self-assessed voice problems relate to their voice and voice changes. Method: Focus groups were conducted at an activity center to identify how older adults reflect on their own voice and the aging voice in general. The interviews were audio recorded and transc...

Purpose: The aim of this study is to explore teachers' experience and understanding of classroom communication after participating in a speech-language pathologist (SLP) led in-service training on classroom communication. Method: This qualitative study used a focus group approach to explore how teachers describe their classroom communication. Tw...

Purpose: This study assesses changes in speech production caused by altered auditory feedback provided through two bone conduction devices. The first device uses sidetone amplification through bone conduction headphones and the second device, called Forbrain®, applies a two-band equalizer filter to the voice signal and provides this altered auditor...

Continued professional development (CPD), tailored to teachers’ needs and expectations, is required for updated skills and knowledge. In this study, twenty-five teachers working with first and second grade students participated in an 11-week programme focusing on enhancing classroom communication. The participating teachers were randomly assigned t...

Purpose: Vocabulary relates to overall language proficiency and is important for academic success. Word definition (WD) tasks can be used to assess vocabulary depth and definition skills. We investigate monolingual and bilingual children’s performances on a WD task, and how bilingualism, level of parental education, school characteristics (proporti...

The present study reports on the development of a questionnaire that evaluates children's experiences of their physical classroom environment, activities and interactions. It also explores the psychometric properties of the questionnaire and how acoustical characteristics of the classroom, class size and student characteristics (age, sex and Swedis...

Aim The present study investigates the effect of signal degradation on perceived listening effort in children with hearing loss listening in a simulated class-room context. It also examines the associations between perceived listening effort, passage comprehension performance and executive functioning. Methods Twenty-four children (aged 06:03–13:0...

We present a three-year multidisciplinary research project that started in 2019 and is funded by FORTE (Swedish Research Council for Health, Working Life and Welfare). The theoretical aim of the project is to gain a better understanding of the principles that underlie successful communication between the sighted and the blind via audio description...

Objective This study aims to translate and cross-culturally adapt the throat scale of the Voice Handicap Index to the Brazilian Portuguese language.uracy. Material and Methods This was performed in five phases translation, synthesis, back translation, review, and pretest. Fifty subjects participated in the pretest, of which 22 participants had chr...

Although teachers’ well-being and vocal health are affected by noise, research on classroom sound environment from the teachers’ perspective is scarce. This study investigated the relationship between teachers’ well-being and classroom acoustics. The possible influence of teachers’ age, experience, teaching grade and class size on the relationship...

This paper presents a study where a 3D motion-capture animated ‘virtual speaker’ is compared to a video of a real speaker with regards to how it facilitates children's speech comprehension of narratives in background multitalker babble noise. As secondary measures, children self-assess the listening- and attentional effort demanded by the task, and...

Assessment of bilingual children in only one language fails to acknowledge their distributed linguistic competence and has been shown to overidentify language disorder in bilingual populations. However, other factors, sometimes associated with bilingualism, may also contribute to low results in language assessments. Our aim was to examine the impac...

Purpose: Children’s results on school-related achievements tests, such as aspects of math, reading and writing, have been shown to decline following a lengthy summer vacation. Few studies have investigated whether this also applies to vocabulary skills. The purpose of this study is to investigate how lexical organization and retrieval, assessed by...

Background: Media frequently report on overall work-place challenges in Swedish schools, including teachers’ working conditions, their well-being, and students’ declining results. Language is the key to success in every school subject. Therefore, optimal language learning environments are important. Poor sound environments affect teachers’ vocal he...

Purpose: Speech signal degradation such as a voice disorder presented in quiet or in combination with multi-talker babble noise could affect listening comprehension in children with hearing impairment. This study aims to investigate the effects of voice quality and multi-talker babble noise on passage comprehension in children with using cochlear i...

This volume presents the latest research on language, literacy and numeracy, cognition, and social and emotional development of deaf learners. It is written by internationally recognized researchers and practitioners. In their contributions they discuss the backgrounds and contexts of their research, take interdisciplinary perspectives in merging t...

Purpose: This study examines the influence of voice quality and multi-talker babble noise on processing and storage performance in a working memory task performed by children using cochlear implants (CI) and/or hearing aids (HA). Methods: Twenty-three children with a hearing impairment using CI and/or HA participated. Age range was between 6 and 13...

Objectives: The first aim, was to compare participant compliance with postoperative voice rest advice in two groups. The second aim was to compare vocal function and recovery in the short-term, seven days post-surgery and in the long-term, 3–6 months post-surgery. Design: Preliminary randomized prospective blind clinical trial. Methods: Twenty pati...

In the primary school classroom, children are exposed to multiple factors that combine to create adverse conditions for listening to and understanding what the teacher is saying. Four experiments were conducted to investigate the combined effects of background babble noise (quiet vs. noise), voice quality (normal vs. dysphonic), and speechreading (...

Objective: to investigate the prevalence of voice disorders in the general population. Study Design: Analysis of data from the Stockholm Public Health Cohort. Methods: A public health survey was distributed to an open cohort of 114 538 adults >18 years of age in the area of Stockholm County, Sweden. The survey included one question about voice prob...

In the primary school classroom, children are exposed to multiple factors that combine to create adverse conditions for listening to and understanding what the teacher is saying. Despite the ubiquity of these conditions, there is little knowledge concerning the way in which various factors combine to influence listening comprehension and the effort...

Purpose This study examines how voice quality and multitalker babble noise affect immediate passage comprehension and the efficiency of information encoding into long-term memory in children with normal hearing. Method Eighteen children (mean age = 9 years) with normal hearing participated. Immediate passage comprehension performance and delayed p...

Aim: Seeing a speaker’s face facilitates speech recognition, particularly under noisy conditions. Evidence for how it might affect comprehension of the content of the speech is more sparse. We investigated how children’s listening comprehension is affected by multi-talker babble noise, with or without presentation of a digitally animated virtual sp...

The present study aims at exploring the influence of voice quality on listening effort in children performing a language comprehension test with sentences of increasing difficulty. Listening effort is explored in relation to gender ( = cisgender). The study has a between-groups design. Ninety-three mainstreamed children aged 8;2 to 9;3 with typical...

Type of Study This is a longitudinal, case-control clinical trial. Objectives This study aims to track recovery time following a vocal loading task (VLT) imposing vocal fatigue and to explore if patients with functional dysphonia (FD) are worse affected by vocal loading, and if these patients take longer than others to recover. Methods Fifty (n =...

Teachers often report voice problems related to the occupational environment, and voice problems are more prevalent in teaching than in other occupations. Relationships between objectively measurable acoustical parameters and voice use have been shown. Speakers have been shown to be able to predict the speaker-comfort of an environment. Teachers wi...

Previous findings suggest that working memory capacity (WMC) is influenced by a dysphonic voice quality. The present study examines the influence of voice quality on sentence processing and word recall in a working memory task. Fifty-seven children (8:1–9:1 years old) with normal hearing participated. Working memory capacity (WMC) was assessed usin...

The study investigates the effect of voice quality and competing speakers on perceived effort in a passage comprehension task in relation to cognitive functioning. In addition, it explores if perceived effort was related to performance. A total of 49 children (aged 7:03 to 12:02 years) with normal hearing participated. The children performed an aud...

Objective: This study explores the effect of voice quality and competing speaker/-s on children’s performance in a passage comprehension task. Furthermore, it explores the interaction between passage comprehension and cognitive functioning. Methods: Forty-nine children (27 girls and 22 boys) with normal hearing (aged 7–12 years) participated. Passa...

Objective Children’s own ratings and opinions on their schools sound environments add important information on noise sources. They can also provide information on how to further improve and optimize children’s learning situation in their classrooms. This study reports on the Swedish translation and application of an evidence-based questionnaire tha...

Objective: The study aimed to examine the vocal behavior and self-assessed vocal health in women with varying everyday vocal load and functional voice problems, including patients with functional dysphonia, in three conditions: work, leisure, and a vocal loading task (VLT). Study design: This is a longitudinal controlled, clinical trial. Method...

Classroom acoustics not always take the speaker's comfort into consideration. The purpose of the presented papers was to investigate voice use, vocal behavior and prevalence of voice problems in Swedish teaching staff. Ratings of features in the work-environment on voice use were explored in n = 487 teachers. Based on their answers the respondents...

Teachers have high occupational voice demands. The voice load of teachers is both environmental and individual. Little is known about the teachers’ own view of the contribution from the environment and about the teachers’ voice use at their work-place. Aim: The purpose was to investigate the voice use and prevalence of voice problems in teachers an...

Suboptimal listening conditions interfere with listeners’ on-line comprehension. A degraded source signal, noise that interferes with sound transmission, and/or listeners’ cognitive or linguistic limitations are examples of adverse listening conditions. Few studies have explored the interaction of these factors in pediatric populations. Yet, they r...

This study aimed to explore if dysphonic voice quality affects children's performance on a language comprehension test, the Test for Reception of Grammar-2 (TROG-2), performed in simultaneous background noise (non-semantic babble). A further aim was to investigate the role of Working Memory Capacity (WMC) and Executive Functioning (EF) in coping wi...

Being born with an orofacial cleft (OFC) can, due to an incomplete closure of the lip and/or palate, convey a deviant speech and/or deviant facial aesthetics, which may in turn increase the risk for poor psychological health later in life. Previous investigations have been based on small samples and self-reports, not distinguishing between the thre...

Previous studies suggest that dysphonic voices are perceived more negatively than typical voices, and it is possible that vocal perception influences academic achievement and comprehension. This study assessed children's subjective ratings and opinions of a typical and dysphonic voice after performing a language comprehension task in background noi...

The aim of this study was to design a clinical vocal loading task (VLT) and to track vocal loading and recovery in voice-healthy subjects. Pilot study. Voice-healthy subjects (six female, five male) took part in a controlled VLT in the voice clinic. The VLT was designed to induce vocal fatigue. The subjects read aloud while making themselves heard...

Objectives: This case-control designed field study examines the vocal behavior in teachers with self-estimated voice problems (VP) and their age- and school-matched voice healthy (VH) colleagues. It was hypothesized that teachers with and teachers without VP use their voices differently regarding fundamental frequency, sound pressure level (SPL),...

Purpose: A small number of studies have explored children's perception of speakers' voice quality and its possible influence on language comprehension. The aim of this explorative study was to investigate the relationship between the examiner's voice quality, the child's performance on a digital version of a language comprehension test, the Test f...

Abstract The tutor is important for student learning in the PBL group. The students expect the tutor to monitor and steer the group process and to support the learning process, helping students to become aware of their own learning. This study aimed at investigating the PBL tutor's role. Five PBL tutors at the Speech/Language Pathology program were...

Objective acoustic parameters have been measured in 30 school classrooms. These parameters include usual descriptors of the acoustic quality from the listeners' standpoint, such as reverberation time, speech transmission index, and background noise level, and two descriptors of the acoustic properties for a speaker: Voice support and room gain. Thi...

This randomized case-control study compares teachers with self-reported voice problems to age-, gender-, and school-matched colleagues with self-reported voice health. The self-assessed voice function is related to factors known to influence the voice: laryngeal findings, voice quality, personality, psychosocial and coping aspects, searching for ca...

Many teachers suffer from voice problems, and classroom acoustics has been considered as one of the potential hazards for this. The present study examines how classroom acoustics interacts with the voices of 14 teachers without voice problems and 13 teachers with voice problems. The assessment of the voice problems was made with a questionnaire and...

Symptoms from throat (sensation of globus; frequent throat clearing; irritated throat) are common in patients referred to voice clinics and to ENT specialists. The relation to symptoms of voice discomfort is unclear and in some cases patients do not have voice problems at all. Instruments for patients' self-reporting of symptoms, and assessment of...

Values of the corrected item-total correlation between the statements of the VHI-T. This file represents a table showing all statements in the VHI-T in Swedish and English, and also showing the values of the corrected item-correlation between the statements.

The primary objective of this study was to examine how a group of Swedish teachers rate aspects of their working environment that can be presumed to have an impact on vocal behavior and voice problems. The secondary objective was to explore the prevalence of voice problems in Swedish teachers. Questionnaires were distributed to the teachers of 23 r...

The aim of the present paper was to evaluate the possible impact of methacholine challenge on the voice and vocal tract in 10 patients reporting hoarseness due to presumable hyperreactivity to some environmental factors. Ten age and gender-matched healthy subjects served as controls. Methacholine was used for hypersensitivity challenge and saline s...

In general opinion computerized automatic speech recognition (ASR) seems to be regarded as a method only to accomplish transcriptions from spoken language to written text and as such quite insecure and rather cumbersome. However, due to great advances in computer technology and informatics methodology ASR has nowadays become quite dependable and ea...

PUMP is a web-based multimedia application, meant as an interactive support in several subject areas of the logopedic education. This educational programme is well suited for the use of multimedia pedagogics since the students need to be trained in various skills with dimensions of both auditive and visual perception, areas that can very well be be...