Pro-fono : revista de atualizacao cientifica最新文献

Background: the Random Gap Detection Test (RGDT) evaluates temporal resolution threshold. There are doubts as to whether performance in this task remains unchanged with the aging process. At the same time, there is a concern about how much the difficulties of communication experienced by elderly individuals are related to the deterioration of temporal resolution.

Aim: to determine auditory temporal resolution threshold in elderly individuals with normal peripheral hearing or symmetric mild sensorineural hearing loss, and to correlate findings with gender, age, audiometric findings and scores obtained in the Self - Assessment of Communication (SAC) questionnaire.

Methods: 63 elderly individuals, aged between 60 and 80 years (53 women and 10 men), were submitted to the RGDT and the SAC.

Results: statistical analysis of the relationship between gender and the RGDT indicated that the performance of elderly females was statistically poorer when compared to elderly males. Age and audiometric configuration did not correlate to performance in the RDGT and in the SAC. The results indicate that in the SAC both genders presented no significant complaints about communication difficulties regardless of the outcome obtained in the RGDT or audiometric configuration.

Conclusion: the average temporal resolution threshold for women was 104.81ms. Considering gender, females did not present correlations between age and audiometric configuration, not only when considering the RGDT results but also when analyzing the SAC results.

Background: cochlear implant is a rather processing electronic device in terms of its benefits, as it provides the deaf child with the appropriation of incidental oral language.

Aim: to evaluate the hearing performance of the first 60 children with pre-lingual sensorineural hearing loss who were implanted at the Audiologic Research Centre of the Hospital de Reabilitação de Anomalias Craniofaciais of the University of São Paulo (CPA-HRAC/USP), 16 years after the implementation of the cochlear implant programme.

Method: 57 children aged between 9 and 18 years were evaluated using the following speech perception tests: lists of monosyllabic and disyllabic word recognition; lists of meaningless syllables recognition - Consonant Confusion Study - Confuse Program (presented in the System to Deploy Cochlear Nucleus software in its programming unit - version 6.90); lists of sentence recognition and list of words used for the assessment of speech sound perception for children with hearing impairment.

Results: all children achieved satisfactory results with the cochlear implant. In the tests involving the index of phoneme and word recognition, the results were statistically significant for the type of cochlear implant Med-El when compared to the other types of implants.

Conclusion: the study indicates that the cochlear implant has brought real benefits for the group of studied children, as it allowed the maximum development of the auditory skills.

Background: the suppression effect with contralateral white noise observed in the brainstem auditory evoked potential can be influenced by the efferent auditory system.

Aim: to evaluate the suppression effect with contralateral white noise in the Brainstem Auditory Evoked Potential of individuals with normal hearing.

Methods: 25 individuals, ranging in age from 18 to 30 years, of both genders, were submitted to a clinical history questionnaire, inspection of the external auditory canal, conventional audiometry, speech audiometry and acoustic immittance measurements. Only individuals with normal hearing thresholds were selected. The selected individuals underwent brainstem auditory evoked potential testing with and without contralateral white noise.

Results: a significant statistical difference was observed between the situations with and without contralateral white noise, for wave I amplitude and waves III and V latencies. No statistical differences were observed for the interpeak latencies.

Conclusion: the present study indicated increased latencies and reduced amplitudes of waves I, III and V with contralateral noise, when comparing the situations with and without noise. These results suggest a possible influence of the efferent auditory system on the response modulation of Brainstem auditory evoked potential when contralateral white noise is used.

Background: this study examines the linguistic features that may influence the occurrence of speech boundaries in fluent and stuttering individuals.

Aim: the study seeks to examine the influences of tone and position in a word on the occurrence of speech boundaries in stuttering and fluent adolescents and adults.

Method: one hundred and twenty individuals took part in this study, both male and female, with ages between 12.0 and 49.11 years old, and were divided into 4 groups: research group 1 (RG1), with 30 stuttering adolescents; research group 2 (RG2), with 30 stuttering adults; control group 1 (CG1), with 30 fluent adolescents; and control group 2 (GC2), with 30 fluent adults. Speech samples containing 200 fluent syllables were collected. In the speech samples, the broken syllables were analyzed according to their tone (unstressed, pre-stressed or stressed) and according to the position in the word (initial, middle or final syllable).

Results: for tone, there was no statistically significant difference in the number of boundaries between the evaluated tones for any of the tested groups. For the location of the broken syllable, there was a predominance of broken syllables in the initial position of words for the stuttering groups of speakers. For the fluent groups, the ruptures were more frequent in the final syllable.

Conclusion: the results of this study reinforce the theory that broken speech is mainly a consequence of slow phonological coding and a corresponding slowness in the building up and recovery of the phonetic plan.

Background: Down syndrome, phonological awareness, writing and working memory.

Aim: to evaluate the phonological awareness of Brazilian children with Down syndrome; to analyze the relationship between the writing hypothesis and the phonological awareness scores of the participants; to compare the performance of children with Down syndrome to that of children with typical development according to the Phonological Awareness: Tool for sequential evaluation (PHONATSE), using the writing hypothesis as a matching criteria; to verify the correlation between the phonological awareness measurements and the phonological working memory.

Method: a group of eleven children aged between 7 and 14 years (average: 9 y 10 m) was selected for the study. Phonological awareness was evaluated using the PHONATSE. The phonological working memory was evaluated through an instrument developed by the researcher.

Results: all subjects presented measurable levels of phonological awareness through the PHONATSE. The phonological awareness scores and the writing hypothesis presented a significant positive association. The performance of children with Down syndrome was significantly lower than children with typical development who presented the same writing hypothesis. Measurements of phonological awareness and phonological working memory presented significant positive correlations.

Conclusion: the phonological awareness of Brazilian children with Down syndrome can be evaluated through the PHONATSE. Syllable awareness improves with literacy, whereas phonemic awareness seems to result from written language learning. The phonological working memory influences the performance of children with Down syndrome in phonological awareness tasks.

Background: relapse in phonological performance.

Aim: to verify relapse in the phonological performance related to sound production in the treatment of phonological disorder.

Method: three subjects with phonological disorders, aged 6:0, 7:0, 7:0 years, were treated for phoneme /r/ using the ABAB-Withdrawal and Multiple Probes Model. After a cycle of treatment, the phonemes that presented relapse in terms of production percentage were compared.

Results: the results indicate that relapse occurred in the phonological system of all subjects. The involved features were mainly related to the main category.

Conclusion: a relationship between the features of the treated phoneme and the ones that presented relapse was observed for all of the studied cases.

Background: according to the literature, the incidence of hearing impairment in patients with HIV / AIDS might be caused by alterations in external, middle and / or internal ear.

Aim: to characterize and to compare the results of audiological assessment and Auditory Brainstem Response in children and adults with AIDS.

Method: audiological and electrophysiological (Auditory Brainstem Response) assessment of hearing was carried out in 51 children and 22 adults with HIV/AIDS (research groups I and II, respectively) and in 50 healthy children and 25 healthy adults (control groups I and II, respectively). Participants ranged in age between 3 and 10 years (children) and between 18 and 50 years (adults).

Results: the most frequent observed alteration for children with AIDS was related to the middle ear whereas for adults with AIDS it was related to the internal ear. Higher occurrence of abnormal results was observed for adults with AIDS as compared to children with AIDS.

Conclusion: children and adults with AIDS present alterations in audiological assessment and Auditory Brainstem Response. This suggests the involvement of peripheral and central auditory pathways. Findings of the present study emphasize the effectiveness of using electrophysiological hearing measures in order to better identify the brain injury level in patients with AIDS, besides allowing the monitoring of the development rate of the disease.

Background: hearing loss during childhood is considered a risk factor for developmental delay.

Aim: to verify the performance of children diagnosed with mild hearing loss, conductive and sensorineural, in the Sustained Auditory Attention Ability Test (SAAAT). The purpose of the study was to verify if the test is influenced by the presence of hearing impairment.

Method: a clinical study of the SAAAT considering three groups: Group 1 (G1) control group composed by children with normal hearing, Group 2 (G2) composed by children with mild bilateral sensorineural hearing loss and Group 3 (G3), composed by children with mild bilateral conductive hearing loss. Participants were children with ages between 7 and 11 years; 30 children in each group. A prospective study.

Interventions: Pure Tone Audiometry, Acoustic Imittance Measures and SAAAT.

Result: children with sensorineural and conductive hearing loss presented a lower performance in all of the SAAT results when compared to the control group.

Conclusion: the SAAAT was influenced by the presence of mild hearing impairment, considering that the greatest influence was observed in the presence of sensorineural hearing loss.

Background: deglutition of post-stroke patients.

Aim: to study the swallowing of post-stroke patients through clinical and scintigraphic evaluations.

Method: participants were 26 patients, who had suffered their first stroke within the last two months. The control group was composed by 15 healthy volunteers. Both groups were submitted to a clinical and scintigraphic evaluation of swallowing; using 5 ml of liquid (water) and 5 ml of paste bolus. Clinical evaluation was composed by an interview, an assessment of the oral structures (without food) and by a functional assessment (with food).

Results: during the clinical evaluation, one individual of the control group presented inefficient larynx elevation and clinical signs of aspiration. As for the group of post-stroke patients, 27% presented inefficient prepare of the liquid bolus and 42% presented inefficient prepare of the paste bolus, in the oral phase. Considering the pharyngeal phase, 12% presented cough and choked. In the scintigraphy evaluation, three post-stroke patients were excluded from this analysis for the following reasons: two did not swallow during the exam acquisition time and one swallowed before the instruction given by the researcher. The group of post-stroke patients presented more oral residues and shorter pharyngeal transit with the paste bolus when compared to the control group.

Conclusion: clinical and objective swallowing evaluations of post-stroke patients are necessary and important to determine therapy intervention and possible outcomes. Patients who have suffered stroke have more residues and shorter pharyngeal transit than healthy individuals. The scintigraphic method should be used more often as a research instrument to quantify the residue, transit time and clearance in each of the swallowing phases.