Nonverbal markers of childhood trauma have been identified in the literature. Yet, the relationship between childhood trauma and the voice is still largely unexplored. We report preliminary findings from a study (N = 48) that investigated whether self-reported childhood trauma is related to acoustic measures on sustained phonation before and after childhood trauma recall. Childhood trauma and minimization/denial of trauma were measured using the Childhood Trauma Questionnaire. Measures of voice (fundamental frequency, related to pitch, and perturbation, or “unsteadiness” in voice sustained phonation) were obtained using voice analysis software lingWAVES. Self-reported trait and state anxiety were also measured, using the State and Trait Anxiety Inventory. Results showed that voice fundamental frequency at baseline was related to self-reported minimization of childhood trauma. Childhood trauma and minimization of childhood trauma were significantly related to voice perturbation measures recorded after trauma recall, accounting for baseline voice measures and self-reported anxiety. These preliminary results indicate the importance of studying voice as a potential nonverbal marker of childhood trauma.

儿童创伤的非语言标记已在文献中鉴定。然而，童年创伤和声音之间的关系仍未得到充分探索。我们报告了一项研究（N  = 48）的初步发现，该研究调查了自我报告的儿童期创伤是否与儿童期召回前后持续发声的声学测量有关。使用儿童创伤问卷调查了儿童创伤和最小化/否定创伤。语音度量（基频，与音调和摄动有关），或语音持续发声中的“不稳定”）是使用语音分析软件lingWAVES获得的。还使用状态和特质焦虑量表测量了自我报告的特质和状态焦虑。结果表明，基线时的语音基本频率与自我报告的儿童期创伤最小化有关。童年期创伤和儿童期创伤的最小化与创伤后回忆中记录的声音摄动测度有显着相关，说明基线声音测度和自我报告的焦虑。这些初步结果表明，研究语音作为儿童创伤的潜在非语言标记的重要性。