PURPOSE: to compare speech-language pathologists and non speech-language pathologists' responses concerning the evaluation of their own voices and to verify if speech-language pathologists have a different self-perception from the others. METHOD: two hundred female subjects, 100 speech-language pathologists and 100 non speech-language pathologists, with mean age: 35 year, took part in the study. The average time of university degree for the speech-language pathologists were mainly from 0 to 3 years (32%), most of them acting in the area of voice (55%) and oral motricity (45%). The non speech-language pathologists had all sort of professions, such as physicians, teachers, lawyers and others. There was no control on the professional use of voice. The participants in the study did a self-evaluation, using a 5 point scale: excellent, very good, good, reasonable and bad, and indicated positive and negative vocal attributes using a protocol developed by Behlau & Pontes (1995) based on the Distinctive terms for the voice (Boone, 1991). RESULTS: speech-language pathologists and non speech-language pathologists showed different responses in the self-evaluation of their voices. There was a greater occurrence of "very good" voices for speech-language pathologist (28%, p=0.041). Speech-language pathologists selected more positive characteristics that non speech-language pathologists (53.6% and 46.4 respectively). The positive characteristic of "adequate" voice was the most selected by speech-language pathologists (31%, p=0.001) and the negative word of "loud" voice was the most selected by non speech-language pathologists (34%, p=0.001). CONCLUSION: speech-language pathologists self-evaluated their own voices in a different way than non speech-language pathologists, especially on the categorization of "very good" quality of voice. While the "adequate" voice characteristic was the only positive qualifier in greater occurrence for speech-language pathologists, "loud" voice was the only negative qualifier for non speech- language pathologists.
Voice; Self Concept; Speech perception
