Editorial

This issue of the JSBFa presents 12 original articles, two case reports, an article on evidence-based Speech-Language Pathology and Audiology and a brief communication. The common thread is to highlight various aspects of normality in the area of human communication disorders, hearing, balance and swallowing.

The area of orofacial myology contributed with four original articles, one related to aspects of swallowing, and also a critical review of the literature on exercise physiology published in the session of Evidence-Based Speech Language Pathology and Audiology. The area of language contributed with six original articles, including two on aspects of writing, one on the relationship between auditory processing and phonological awareness and another on a test for assessment of aphasia, as well as a case study on the functional aspects of communication in small children. The voice area contributed with an original article on theatre actors and a brief communication on two response modalities of a self-assessment protocol of the impact of dysphonia. The area of ​​balance contributed with an original article that analyzed the posture based on virtual reality stimuli.

The first orofacial myology article, from Ramires, Ferreira, Marchesan, Cattoni & Andrada e Silva, presents a proposal for facial type determination through anthropometry, analyzing 105 adults and concluding that some indexes and proportions vary according to facial type and gender, although anthropometric variables did not prove reliable in predicting facial types.

The article from Motta, César, Bommarito & Chiari analyzed the axial force of the tongue in 92 individuals from different ages and verified that the medium period to reach the tongue's maximum force is shorter in adults, although the maximum force and the tongue's accumulated energy are not influenced by age.

The article from Silva-Munhoz & Bühler describes the fluoroscopic findings of swallowing in 20 preterm infants, comparing them to 17 full-term infants. The authors concluded that preterm infants from zero to six months of age have nasopharyngeal and gastroesophageal reflux, as well as more desaturation, hypothesizing that the swallowing disorders were due to immaturity in the swallowing function.

The article from Pernambuco, Silva, Lima, Cunha, Santos, Cunha & Leão characterized the electrical activity of the masseter muscle during swallowing of liquids in 14 healthy young adults and concluded that there is muscle electrical activity during this task, with different responses bilaterally, influenced by the volume swallowed.

Regarding the articles on the area of language, the first contribution, from Ortiz & Costa, evaluated the use of M1-Alpha test in 30 normal subjects with low education, from both genders, to obtain reference data, and concluded that low education influenced the performance of subjects in tasks of copying, writing to dictation, reading comprehension and reading aloud.

The study from Capellini, Amaral, Oliveira, Sampaio Fusco, Cervera-Mérida & Ygual-Fernández characterized the spelling performance of 120 students, from 2nd to 5th grade from public school, based on the semiology of the error. The authors concluded that the profile of spelling acquisition in the Portuguese writing system indicates normal development of writing in this population, showing progress according to education level.

The study from Bigarelli & Ávila also analyzed the narrative and orthographic writing abilities in elementary school students, identifying characteristics and correlations in 160 children between 8 and 12 years old. The study concluded that the private schools students presented a better orthographic and narrative performance than the public school students; as the grades progressed, their performance in writing and text production tasks were influenced.

The article from Grivol & Hage analyzed the phonological working memory of 90 normal subjects – 30 children, 30 adults, and 30 elderly – and concluded that elderly obtained worse performance, and that adults have better storage of verbal material, suggesting that phonological working memory suffers decline with the aging process.

The article from Vidor-Souza, Mota & Santos analyzed the articulatory awareness development of 90 children students of preschool to first grade of elementary school and verified that the performance in articulatory awareness improves with age and schooling, with better performance in female children, and with good correlation between the performances in articulatory gesture perception tasks and in articulatory gesture production tasks.

The study from Escalda, Lemos & França evaluated the auditory processing and phonological awareness skills of 56 five-year-old children and concluded that musical experience improves auditory and metalinguistic skills of these children, mainly because of differences in tests of sequential memory for verbal and non-verbal sounds, phonological awareness tasks of rhyming, phonemic synthesis and phonemic exclusion.

The original article of voice area, from Goulart & Vilanova, verified the occurrence of voice symptoms and complaints in 48 theatre professional actors and concluded that 25% of these voice professionals still report difficulties, in spite of having a history of training and guidance for the use of professional voice.

The first case study, from Amato & Fernandes, shows a longitudinal analysis of pragmatic aspects of six subjects, from the 1st to the 36th month of life, concluding that the infant seek the interactivity since birth and that, with age, they improve the quality and quantity of his/her communication abilities.

The second case study, from Mendes, Molini-Avejonas, Ribeiro & Souza, presents an interesting descriptive-exploratory analysis on the report of the construction of a guide for caregivers of bedridden patients and/or patients with home restrictions, developed from a partnership among Family Healthcare (FHT) and the speech-language pathologists and audiologists teams, and the caregivers of patients from the Basic Health Unit (BHU).

The balance area was represented by the study of Ghiringhelli & Ganança on posturography with virtual reality stimuli in 50 young adults of both genders without balance disorders. It was determined the area of the stability limit and other parameters of normality, noting that there are gender differences regarding the center of pressure, limit of stability and sway speed.

The contribution of Ferreira, Mangilli, Sassi, Fortunato-Tavares, Limongi & Andrade is one of the researchers' efforts to identify speech language pathology evidence. The authors analyzed 38 articles on the physiology of speech therapy exercises used in the treatment of oral myofunctional disorders and concluded that there is a lack of knowledge about the effects of the myofunctional exercises used by clinicians, and that there is a lack of scientific evidence to determine the frequency at which they should be performed.

Finally, the brief communication by Pires, Oliveira & Behlau aimed to compare to compare two types of rating scales using the VAPP self-assessment questionnaire and concluded that the scores produced by the two different rating scales were similar, and the questionnaire with the numeric scale is faster and preferred by patients, which may be useful for clinical application.

The editorial by Fernanda Dreux Miranda Fernandes highlights important aspects on scientific publishing in Brazil and the efforts that Speech-Language Pathology and Audiology has been taking to improve its representation in national and international scenario. Analyzing the evolution of articles published in both Revista da SBFa and in JSBFa (formerly Pro-Fono Revista de Atualziação Científica), we can easily recognize the researchers' and reviewers' efforts to produce a more suitable, easy reading text, and which enhances the impact of research developed for Speech-Language Pathology and Audiology.

Brazil has now nearly 100 undergraduate programs, 24 of which concentrated on São Paulo state; 13 graduate programs, with nine master's degrees: six in São Paulo state, a professional master's degree in Rio de Janeiro, one in Parana and another in Rio Grande do Sul; and only four doctoral degree programs, all in São Paulo. The Brazilian Society of Speech Language Pathology and Audiology (SBFa) recognizes the struggles of all researchers, especially those from other states, overcoming the limitations of their educational and research institutions. We are 35 thousand SLP and just 510 doctors. Although most studies are headed by researchers from São Paulo, many of the first authors are young researchers in training, who will take the knowledge and experience to their region of origin. The SBFa bets on that and contributes to the democratization of science with a persistent and careful review.

Mara Behlau

Scientific Editor of the JSBFa

Publication Dates

• Publication in this collection
  14 Oct 2011
• Date of issue
  Sept 2011