The sense of hearing applied to assessment of the voice. In some locations, auditory perceptual evaluation of voice refers primarily to characteristics of the patient’s spontaneous speaking voice, and sometimes very basic additional elicitations.
However, in clinics where the integrative diagnostic model has been mastered, the clinician’s auditory perception has been informed by extensive knowledge and experience of normal and abnormal vocal capabilities and vocal limitations. This knowledge, along with his or her own voice used for modeling and elicitation, are the tools used when conducting the vocal capability battery. It is auditory perceptual evaluation of elicited vocalizations at the extremes of normal capability that provide powerful diagnostic information about the voice, as distinct from the larynx.