Lessac Madsen Resonant Voice Therapy Training educates patients how to use their resonant voices, which creates an audible buzzing sound in front of their faces. By optimizing loudness intensity while limiting phonotrauma, this type of laryngeal configuration ensures loudness intensity with minimum risk of phonotrauma.
Therapists use nonspeech exploratory exercises and speech articulation techniques to assist their clients in finding optimal representations of their resonant voice, before encouraging them to practice using this new voice in whisper mode until it can become a regular part of daily life.
Vocal Function Exercises
Resonant Voice Therapy (RVT) is an approach to vocal health that helps patients produce fuller sounds with less effort, learning to control vocal motor movements to maximize vibration efficiency and reduce vocal cord strain. RVT can improve quality of life for its participants while decreasing risks such as developing new granulomas or polyps on vocal folds and alleviating symptoms associated with voice disorders. RVT may be combined with other treatment techniques such as vocal hygiene training therapy and conversation training therapy as a form of holistic healthcare solution.
RVT therapy can assist those suffering from various voice disorders, including loss of power and resonance, breathiness and hoarseness. In certain instances, it can even assist those recovering from surgery and treatment for throat cancer to regain their voices. While RVT may seem like an immediate fix, mastery takes time. A typical program usually entails weekly sessions with an SLP lasting about an hour each. Patients will likely also have homework assignments they must complete between sessions.
Lessac Madsen Resonant Voice Therapy (LMRVT) is an established form of RVT that uses specific vocal exercises to teach patients how to speak and sing with maximum vibration efficiency. Key exercises in LMRVT include tube phonation – speaking or singing through an partially blocked-off straw for backpressure that unloads vocal cords; as well as exploring semi-occluded consonants like fricatives and nasals as either nonspeech exercises or integrated into connected speech as key training gestures or embedded cues; tube phonation; and exploring semi-occluded consonants like fricatives or nasals can all help maximize vibration efficiency in speech production.
LMRVT also emphasizes the role of clinicians as guides through the process of exploring resonant voice. Guidance should follow the scan-gel-show-tell principle with attention given to self-awareness, physical manipulation and demonstration articulation practice as part of this exploration. Ultimately, LMRVT’s goal is for every patient to achieve his/her ideal representation of resonant voice as part of an accessible daily training behavior (BTG).
Resonant voice therapy may take several months or even years for patients suffering from serious vocal disorders to see results; those committed and patient enough will likely see changes within weeks; for those experiencing more significant issues it could take several months or even longer.
Humming Exercises
RVT provides patients with a new, healthier way of using their voices, whether that is singing again or speaking more clearly and powerfully. RVT utilizes exercises which promote vocal fold vibration for easier production with reduced effort; and additionally it teaches patients how to properly take care of their voices to avoid overuse that could cause damage.
Your SLP may begin you on a basic program consisting of weekly sessions lasting about an hour, followed by daily practice at home to maintain results. The length of this program largely depends on your personal situation and length of time you’ve experienced problems with your voice; generally speaking, however, results usually take several months before becoming visible.
Dependent upon your individual needs, humming exercises may include phonating through a straw, blowing bubbles, and performing lip trills. These activities allow your tongue and lips to form an effective semi-occluded space which generates vibrations in the vocal folds more efficiently than they otherwise would have done.
This approach can be used to treat both hyperfunctional (vocal fold paresis, paralysis) and hypofunctional (loss of voice volume, reduced respiratory support) disorders in both children and adults, treating symptoms such as hoarseness, vocal cord spasms, vocal nodules, throat infections and more. It has proven itself effective both ways.
Lessac’s theory held that resonant voice production requires three energies of structural action, tonal action and consonant action coming together in synergy. Lessac-Madsen Resonant Voice Therapy (LMRVT) addresses two of these energies, including training of laryngeal configuration specific to producing resonant voices as well as anterior oral vibrations during phonation.
RVT is an evidence-based treatment approach. A 2017 systematic review of studies of RVT showed it can improve both quality and ease of phonation for people living with dysphonia. Further research needs to be conducted in order to establish additional treatment effects, diagnoses/patient characteristics that this therapy is useful for, as well as optimal home practice schedules that ensure long-term therapeutic benefits are realized.
Emotional Manipulation
Some individuals tend to be more vulnerable to emotional manipulation than others, whether they be narcissists, depressed people, or those unable to effectively deal with negative emotions. Such individuals will use tactics like gaslighting and guilt-tripping in order to manipulate their victim. They might deny something they did hurt you while at the same time exploiting them by denying feelings or exploiting vulnerabilities; ultimately these individuals only care about meeting their own needs rather than your wellbeing.
Speech pathologists who specialize in resonant voice therapy training will teach their clients to recognize and avoid unhealthy voice behaviors. Beginning with an assessment process involving full-body introspection and observation, scan-gel-show-tell sessions, physical manipulation until ideal examples of resonant voice behavior emerge, speech pathologists will then teach how to incorporate it into daily conversations using imitation phrases.
Lessac Madsen Resonant Voice Therapy, commonly referred to as LMRVT, teaches patients how to speak and sing with fuller sound and less vocal effort. LMRVT was devised by Katherine Verdolini who states that creating a resonant voice requires structural, tonal and consonant actions all working in harmony as an energy triangle; she emphasizes this vibration feeling in lips, face, teeth and facial bones when speaking or singing resonantly; easy phonation is necessary when practicing creating these unvoiced sounds such as blowing bubbles or lip trills for practice!
Nonspeech exploration exercises have shown some promise, yet do not improve resonant voice outcomes as significantly as speech articulation training. Research into LMRVT examines its combination of both approaches to determine their effects on voice quality, effort level and nodule formation – in addition to increasing resonance production it may help prevent nodules by decreasing laryngeal adduction frequency during prephonatory adjustment phases of speech production.
Resonant voice therapy recognizes the significance of proper hydration for voice health. Teaching patients how to effectively hydrate their voices can reduce hoarseness risk and even prevent benign nodules from forming; in one study, those receiving educational programs on how to properly hydrate their voices experienced greater nodule resolution compared to a control group that did not receive such training.
Vocal Hygiene
Due to the growing incidence of voice disorders, there has been an increased demand for functional and customized solutions to treat symptoms. While traditional approaches to vocal hygiene might have included lists of do’s and don’ts related to language use – such as “vocal misuse and abuse” – modern guidelines stipulate that setting effective vocal hygiene targets must be patient driven and include factors likely to impact social cognitive factors like goal commitment and self-efficacy.
This approach involves optimizing both systemic and surface hydration while avoiding patterns of phonotrauma such as chronic cough/throat clearing. Pacing vocal behaviors when engaging in high-impact activities may also help. While complete voice rest can be effective for treating acute injuries and serving as a diagnostic tool, this strategy may not be practical in daily voice demands management.
Beyond hydration and the prevention of phonotrauma, other goals of vocal hygiene have also been established to improve voice function and health. For instance, the Resonant Voice Technique encourages students to practice singing using the barely abducted/adducted position – multiple studies have proven it gives greater vocal intensity with minimal risk to vocal folds.
Resonant voice training emphasizes easy phonation at the larynx and anterior oral vibrations that correspond with semi-occluded consonants such as /m/, /n/ and /ng/. Lessac believed that voice had three energies-structural, tonal and consonant-that must all work in harmony for an authentic resonance sound to emerge.
Additionally, the Resonant Voice Program addresses vocal cord stiffness by teaching students to synchronize their voice with their breath, an essential step as stiff vocal cords are more likely to be damaged during voice use. Furthermore, emotional manipulation exercises provide students with opportunities to utilize their resonant voices during moments of joy, anger and sadness – encouraging healthy and resonant voices outside the clinic as part of everyday life – positively enhancing quality of life for all involved.
