No matter whether you are an established speaker or casual communicator, Resonant Voice Therapy (RVT) can help you develop a powerful and commanding voice to elevate your presence and draw audiences in.
RVT (Vocal Vocality Training) is a physiological approach to voice training that enhances vocal quality and health by shifting vocal power away from straining laryngeal folds. RVT training uses oral semi-occlusion, forward focus and easy phonation techniques for optimal vocal health and quality.
Easy Phonation
Resonant Voice Therapy (RVT) empowers individuals to take control of their own vocal health and maximize communication potential. Speech-language pathologists help clients unlock the power of strong, clear, resonant voices – the embodiment of each person’s individuality and identity.
RVT employs exercises that teach balanced phonation or easy onsets and promote coordination between voice and breathing to increase quality and reduce strain on vocal folds. RVT also emphasizes training all parts of one’s voice rather than just vocal folds to strengthen overall quality and reduce strain on them.
Beginning patients may work through simple articulation drills to gain a more accurate sense of how their vocal resonators work. These may include lip and tongue trills, humming, and other sound production techniques to develop self-awareness of vocal resonators so as to use them optimally and maximize long-term progress with Resonant Voice Therapy. It helps clients realize they can adjust vocal production patterns at will.
Over time, the therapist can gradually increase the difficulty of the phonation exercises to maintain healthy vocal functioning and ensure optimal voice health. In some instances, this means introducing more complex articulation and syllable production to help the patient develop coordination between voice production and breath use for effective communication. Some therapists utilize the Smith Accent Technique, which emphasizes rhythmic breathing to coordinate vocal fold vibration, air pressure and airflow. Other approaches have used Expiratory Muscle Strength Training (EMST), a specific resonant voice therapy approach developed specifically to strengthen muscles involved in swallowing and breathing for Parkinson’s patients.
Are You Singing, Teaching, Speaking Professionally or Communicating Daily? RVT Can Help! Make an Appointment Today To Discover Its Value.
Forward Focus
Forward focus can help those living with voice disorders reduce tension in the throat. Resonant voice therapy techniques assist by shifting voice power away from vocal folds and into the front of the face – relieving muscle tension dysphonia and vocal fold nodules (Kao, 2017). There are various protocols available for this therapy like Lessac-Madsen Resonant Voice Therapy by Kathrine Verdonlini Abbott or Resonant Voice Therapy by Joseph Stemple that may assist.
These techniques can also be utilized by children with speech impairment. They can help improve vocal wellness and prevent hoarseness or loss of tone issues from developing further, providing SLPs with valuable resources during initial treatment phases or as a maintenance routine after being diagnosed with voice disorders.
Under this method, patients should practice easy phonations while remaining mindful of any sensations in their throat and head when speaking. Home exercises for voice therapy could also help, including practicing Lee Silverman Voice Treatment LOUD or Vocal Hygiene PDFs as part of Lee Silverman Voice Therapy to promote success and further progress.
ForwardFocus can be enabled through the Nucleus Smart App and is recommended for users aged 12 or over who can reliably provide feedback on sound quality and understand how to operate this feature. However, ForwardFocus may not be helpful when used during conversations that take place at a safe listening distance from a talker.
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Reduction of Tension in the Voice Box
Tension in the throat muscles (larynx) can restrict airflow through the voice box and result in decreased vocal quality and effort levels that make speaking harder than necessary. This may contribute to vocal fatigue as well as nodules or polyps on vocal cords becoming worse, leading to nodules or polyps. Resonant voice therapy provides relief by relieving strain from vocal folds; its goal being smooth, clear and strong voices for its practitioners.
Resonant voice therapy teaches patients to speak with forward focus and easy phonations that maximize larynx health. Resonant therapy emphasizes vibratory sensations felt in front of mouth, lips, and face rather than tightness of throat; from vibratory sensations through humming/nasal sound production and then onto words/phrases/conversational speech production.
Resonant voice therapy entails identifying the appropriate position for laryngeal resonators to produce an even and full sound, and teaching proper closure of false vocal cords to reduce tension in throat muscles. This helps avoid excess pressure on true vocal folds which could otherwise lead to granulomas (growths of scar tissue on vocal cords) or other serious voice conditions.
An evaluation from a qualified speech-language pathologist can assist in identifying the appropriate plan to reduce resonance disorders. They will tailor a plan that meets all your individual needs to help achieve your communication goals.
Resonant voice therapy is one of the most effective strategies for treating various voice issues, including muscle tension dysphonia and vocal nodules. Resonant voice therapy exercises can help strengthen and develop your speaking voice in any setting – from workplace meetings to family conversations at home. Resonant voice therapy exercises on mobile therapy apps offer convenient and engaging ways to practice resonant voice therapy exercises on-the-go!
Generalization
Clinical trials have demonstrated that voice therapy improves overall dysphonia; however, pinpointing individual ingredients responsible has proven difficult. To aid this effort, a physiatrist specializing in traumatic brain injury rehabilitation led the creation of the Rehabilitation Treatment Taxonomy and its variant (RTSS-Voice – expert consensus categories of measurable and unique voice treatment ingredients).
RTSS-Voice was designed to allow clinicians to specify what a therapy technique will achieve rather than specifying what a patient must do. To eliminate facilitator bias and reduce facilitator influence, external readers who were not speech-language pathologists reviewed draft RTSS-Voice drafts; using this approach researchers were able to effectively eliminate any influence voice therapists had in developing its original version.
To ensure the RTSS-Voice would be useful to frontline clinicians, it was designed based on what vocal disorder specialists currently practice. Therefore, initially only ingredients and targets that affected Organ Functions, Skills and Habits and Representations treatment components were included on its lists; as a result no activities related to practising breathing techniques, activating certain levels of muscle contraction or sensory discrimination were covered by it.
RTSS-Voice treatment ingredients also forbid devices that involve opening and closing the larynx, such as straws, kazoos or singing into a bottle. Instead, the list includes techniques involving occlusion of vocal tract, such as lip-trills while fingers or cupped hands are plugged with finger tips, designed to increase consonant vibration near mouth lips and nasal cavities – thus improving vocal acoustic output quality by maximising vibrational consonant vibrations near mouth lips and nasal cavity areas.
RTSS-Voice’s treatment ingredients aim to aid generalization to conversational speech, such as providing opportunities to practice increasing forward resonance into conversation and receiving positive feedback on performance starting at 100% frequency and decreasing until desired outcome is maintained 80% of time. Negative practice strategies involving asking patients to alternate between their old (“old”) voice and new (“new”) voice for self-motivation could promote behavioral learning as well as habit formation.
