What happens to a child's voice during puberty?

Puberty normally occurs between 13 and 15 years of age for boys, and 9 and 16 years of age for girls. Puberty is characterized by rapid muscle development, growth in height, weight gain, and development of the thyroid cartilage and thyroarytenoid. A boy's larynx grows considerably larger than the larynx of a girl, resulting in major changes in the boy's voice. Boys pass through periods of mutation during which their voices "break down" in pitch when talking.

Puberphonia involves maintaining the childhood pitch, even though the boy has completed the development stage of puberty. Thus the boy is still speaking in falsetto, which can be quite disturbing because the boy's body is now developed. Over the summer, and in the absence of peer pressure, the young man usually learns to lower his voice, sometimes with the help of a therapist.