A Review of Training Opportunities for Singing Voice Rehabilitation Specialists

Abstract

Objectives: Training opportunities for singing voice rehabilitation specialists are growing and changing. This is happening despite a lack of agreed-on guidelines or an accredited certification acknowledged by the governing bodies in the fields of speech-language pathology and vocal pedagogy, the American Speech-Language Hearing Association and the National Association of Teachers of Singing, respectively. The roles of the speech-language pathologist, the singing teacher, and the person who bridges this gap, the singing voice rehabilitation specialist, are now becoming better defined and more common among the voice care community. To that end, this article aims to review the current opportunities for training in the field of singing voice rehabilitation.

Methods: A review of available university training programs, private training programs and mentorships, clinical fellowships, professional organizations, conferences, vocal training across genres, and self-study opportunities was conducted. All institutional listings are with permission from program leaders.

Results/conclusions: Although many avenues are available for training of singing voice rehabilitation specialists, there is no accredited comprehensive training program at this point. This review gathers information on current training opportunities from across various modalities. The listings are not intended to be comprehensive but rather representative of possibilities for interested practitioners.

Keywords: Clinical training; Singing voice rehabilitation specialist.