The loyal readers of this blog can attest to the many uses of IVR systems.

They’re great for corporate applications, sure, but IVR can also be used in medical facilities and gadgets for the disabled, as well as in new educational tools and research.

These applications all center on allowing us to naturally communicate with machines.

On the other side of things, though, it seems like the use of IVR-like tech may be able to actually save our ability to speak.

Here’s what I mean.

Back in 2005, according to Medical News Today, a group of researchers at the University of Malaga (in Spain) performed a study on a large group of local primary and early childhood education teachers.

The team was interested in finding out if teachers, who spend most of their days speaking in a noisy environment, suffered from more vocal problems than those of us working in less speech-heavy professions.

It turns out that not only was the team right, but they found that 62.7% of those teachers surveyed suffered from voice problems/pains on a daily or weekly basis.

It makes sense that those who have to talk a lot at work have more voice problems, in the same way that you would expect marathon runners to have more knee problems than the average person.

Perhaps it was this study that encouraged the Spanish government in 2006 (mentioned in the same Medical News Today article to pass legislation placing “laryngeal nodules” on the list of professional illnesses associated with teachers, call center operators, singers, actors and broadcasters.

If developing nodes on your vocal cords is a risk associated with talking to much, then it looks like finding a system that allows you to speak less might actually be quite a welcome change.

…Stay tuned for the rest in, “Avoiding the Strain of Speech”…