Editorial

Dra. Fernanda Dreux M. Fernandes

I am writing this editorial on my way back to Brazil form the Council for Academic Development in Communication Sciences and Disorders (CADCSD) annual meeting. I participated in this event as the representative of the Undergraduate Program in Speech-Language Pathology and Audiology of the School of Medicine, Universidade de São Paulo (USP), but its results go beyond that representation. For the first time the Council, that usually includes American programs on CSD, invited representatives from 16 countries to a Global Summit.

This initiative produced an intriguing panel about the different stages of development of the area in different regions of the world. It also created the opportunity to deepen discussions about several issues, as the impact of the World Report on Deficiency (published by the World Health Organization), which I discussed on a recent editorial.

Another extensively discussed aspect was the possible initiatives to improve the internationalization of academic programs, in order to allow the education of professionals that are more aware of different global realities and therefore more able to work in different opportunities. One of the easiest applicable alternatives is developing the habit of reading international journals. There is no doubt about the quality improvement that was observed in the Brazilian Speech-Language Pathology and Audiology with the easier access to international publications, which also resulted in significant quality improvement of the Brazilian journals. In other realities, however, the issue is frequently not related to the access to foreign publications, but rather to the need to get away from a certain comfort zone, where only national (or even regional) journals are considered relevant (or sufficient).

The Revista da Sociedade Brasileira de Fonoaudiologia has been constantly working in this direction: to continue to be an essential reference to the evidence-based practice by publishing studies conducted in the Brazilian reality with Portuguese-speaking individuals, that are relevant for the Brazilian SLP or Audiologist; and, at the same time, to increasingly become an international reference in Speech-Language Pathology and Audiology. Completely bilingual publication and open-access are fundamental aspects in this path, allowing the Revista to increase the international impact of the research conducted in Brazil and the discussions about its applicability to other realities.

Hence, we continue publishing studies conducted in the more relevant universities, by renowned researchers and young talents, always counting with careful and generous reviews from our editorial board.

The first Original Article is presented by Azevedo, Friche and Lemos, from Universidade Federal de Minas Gerais and is called Quality of life and self-perception of health of patients from an Outpatient Clinic of Speech-Language Pathology and Audiology. In this study, 97 adults responded to questionnaires about quality of life and self-perception of health. The authors concluded that self-perception as a healthy person was related to the individual's quality of life, and that both aspects are influenced by low educational status.

Communication difficulties between individuals with hearing disability and health professionals: a public health matter is the title of the paper written by Castro, Paiva and César from the School of Public Health of Universidade de São Paulo. In this study the authors sought to describe the occurrence of reported difficulties of people with hearing and/or multiple disabilities (auditory and visual and/or mobility) regarding their difficulties in hearing and understanding health professionals. They concluded that more than one third of the subjects have problems to hear and understand what these professionals say.

Yamamoto and Ferrari, from the Bauru School of Dentistry of Universidade de São Paulo studied the Relationship between hearing thresholds, handicap and the time to taken seek treatment for hearing loss in 200 adults and elderly. The authors concluded that the search for treatment seems to be influenced by hearing thresholds, and that, despite technological advances and changes in the access to information and treatment, the time taken to search for treatment was similar to that reported 30 years ago.

Dizziness in elderly individuals: otoneurological diagnosis and interference on the quality of life is the title of the paper presented by Scherer, Lisboa and Pasqualotti from Universidade de Passo Fundo. Participants were 56 elderly individuals with dizziness, mean age of 71.2 years. The authors concluded that most elderly patients with dizziness present alterations in audiometry and vectoelectronystagmography, which interfere in their quality of life.

The Performance of elderly individuals with presbycusis in tasks involving inhibitory control was studied by Costa and Zimmer, from Universidade Católica de Pelotas. The authors determined a control group of normal hearing individuals, a group of individuals with presbycusis users of hearing aid, and a group of individuals with presbycusis who did not use hearing aid. Statistical analysis indicated a difference between individuals with and without hearing loss only in reaction time.

Camboim, Scharlach, Almeida, Vasconcelos and Azevedo, from Universidade Estadual de Ciências da Saúde de Alagoas, describe the study about the Analysis of compliance and tympanometric gradient in infants with reflux. Participants were 118 full-term and preterm infants, from newborns to 6-month-olds, 63 with clinical diagnosis of physiological gastroesophageal reflux (GER) and 55 without GER. The authors concluded that infants with reflux have compliance within normal limits, although they present lower compliance than infants without reflux.

The Characterization of the pattern of velopharyngeal closure in cleft palate patients was studied by Di Ninno, Rezende, Jesus, Pires, Godinho and Britto, of Pontifícia Universidade Católica de Minas Gerais. The authors concluded that most of the sample presented coronal pattern of velopharyngeal closure, and that there was no relationship between closure pattern and the variables gender, age, and cleft type, but there was a related influence of the diagnosis of velopharyngeal function.

Multicenter study about severity scales of neurogenic oropharyngeal dysphagia is the title of the paper written by Silva, Motonaga, Cola, Gatto, Ribeiro, Carvalho, Schelp, Jorge, Peres and Dantas, from Universidade Estadual Paulista (Marília and Botucatu campi). The authors describe a clinical cross-sectional study with 200 participants with neurogenic oropharyngeal dysphagia. They conclude that the agreement between the clinical scales was very good and between the objective scales was moderate, and suggest that further discussion and possible revision of the parameters that define the severity of oropharyngeal dysphagia in neurological patients are required.

The paper Myofunctional characteristics of obese mouth and nose breathers was written by Berlese, Fontana, Botton, Weimnann and Haeffner from Universidade Federal de Santa Maria. Participants were 24 obese children and adolescents; most of them presented oral breathing and myofunctional alterations of the stomatognathic system.

Mendes, Pandolfi, Carabetta Júnior, Novo and Colombo-Souza, from Universidade de Santo Amaro, studied the Factors associated to language disorders in preschool children on a cross-sectional study that screened 126 children. Risk for language disorders was detected in 18.3% of the participants.

Acoustic characteristics of the phonemes [s] and [∫] of adults and children without phonological disorders is the title of the study conducted at Universidade Federal de Santa Maria by Brasil, Mezzomo, Mota, Melo, Lovatto and Arzeno with 26 participants. The authors report that children's and adults' productions were similar for most of the considered parameters.

In a research conducted at the School of Medicine of Universidade de São Paulo, Wertzner, Claudino, Galea, Patah and Castro studied Phonological measures in children with phonological disorders in 36 children with ages between 5 and 7 years. Children with phonological disorders presented poorer performance when compared to the control group.

Relationship between the percentage of consonant correct and phonological working memory in specific language impairment is the title of the study reported by Befi-Lopes, Tanikawa and Cáceres, also from the School of Medicine of Universidade de São Paulo. This retrospective study included 30 children diagnosed with specific language impairment with ages between 4 and 6 years. The authors state that age do not influence the improvement of phonological abilities and phonological working memory.

Researchers from Universidade Estadual Paulista, Oliveira, Cardoso and Capellini, present the results of the study about the Characterization of reading processes in students with dyslexia and learning disabilities. Participants were 60 students from first to fourth grades of Elementary School. The authors report that students with dyslexia and learning disabilities present lower but different performances in reading assessment tasks.

The Influence of the type of visual stimulus in the written production of deaf signers without complaints of writing impairments was studied by Rodrigues, Abdo and Cárnio – School of Medicine of Universidade de São Paulo – in 14 children (ages 8 to 13) that were users of the Brazilian Sign Language. They concluded that the use of visual stimuli did not interfere in the written production of the studied individuals.

Borrego and Behlau, from Universidade Federal de São Paulo, describe the study Emphatic accent used by individuals with and without voice and speech training. Based on the analysis of 77 individuals, the authors concluded that the use of emphasis resources is a particular choice, and not a result of vocal training.

The first Case Report refers to the Acoustic and auditory-perceptual analyses of voice before and after speech-language therapy in patients with mutational falsetto, and was written by Gama, Mesquita, Reis and Bassi, from Universidade Federal de Minas Gerais. The authors describe the results of speech-language therapy of four young men with mutational falsetto.

The other Case Report describes the Benefits of botulinum toxin associated to swallowing therapy in patients with severe dysphagia and is presented by Menezes, Rodrigues, Oliveira Neto, Chiari, Manrique and Gonçalves, from Universidade Federal de São Paulo. It is a retrospective study of five neurological patients with ages between 17 and 70 years, who exclusively used alternative tube feeding.

Zeigelboim, from Universidade Tuiuti do Paraná, writes the New Reflexions paper about the article Balance Rehabilitation Unit (BRU^TM) posturography in relapsing-remitting multiple sclerosis, which was published in 2011 on the journal Arquivos de Neuropsiquiatria.

Cardoso, from Universidade do Estado da Bahia, reviews the paper Brazil: towards sustainability and equity in health, published in 2011 on theLancet.

Finally, the Abstracts presented refer to the following researches: Coping strategies in teacher with voice complaint, by Zambon, Masters dissertation from Universidade Federal de São Paulo; Cross-cultural adaptation and validation of the Voice Symptom Scale – VoiSS into Brazilian Portuguese, by Moreti, Masters dissertation from Universidade Federal de São Paulo; Acute effects of sleep deprivation on the central auditory processing in healthy adults, by Liberalesso, Doctorate thesis fromUniversidade Tuiuti do Paraná; and The conditions of literacy in the aging process: an analysis with elderly over 65 years, by Souza Filho, Masters dissertation from Universidade Tuiuti do Paraná.

Congratulations to the authors and, as always, many thanks to the reviewers!

Fernanda Dreux

Scientific editor of RSBF

Publication Dates

• Publication in this collection
  26 June 2012
• Date of issue
  June 2012