Vocal limitations are expected capabilities that the individual has lost. Via elicitation, the examiner seeks to answer the question: “What can’t this voice do that it should be able to do?” In other words, they are the set of incapacities of an individual voice, as compared with what would be expected, if that voice were entirely normal for age and sex.

Vocal limitations may not be understood by clinicians who: (1) do not have a complete understanding of normal capabilities, often derived from thorough knowledge of singing voice capabilities; (2) can’t or don’t elicit a complete vocal capability battery, with necessary modeling of various vocal tasks, particularly at the extremes of vocal capability.