Voice Disorders and their Management

Book excerpt: Since this book was first published, four years ago, there has been a considerable upsurge of interest in the field of both normal and abnormal voice production. Tangible evidence of this lies in the publication of the Journal of Voice in the United States, and in the UK the formation of the British Voice Association. This organization has attracted an increasing membership from professionals involved in all aspects of voice care and use - actors and singers, laryngologists and speech therapists, teachers and phoneticians. The Association holds regular study days, holds an annual two-day symposium, and publishes a Newsletter which attracts entries from this broad spectrum of professionals. We have also seen an increase in the number of specialist voice clinics, and in the two final chapters in this book a contrast is presented between such a specialist setting and the more typical clinic that operates in the majority of general hospitals. This last chapter now contains a breakdown of voice referrals over an eight-year period, which must represent a unique published study in this country. There still remains, however, little research into the management of voice disorders. There is clearly a need for more efficacy studies into specific treatment methods, and the single case-study designs developed in the field of aphasia would seem to be appropriate here.