EDITORIAL
EDITORIAL
It is with great pleasure that we present the last issue of JSBFa in 2011, completing its first year of publication under the responsibility of SBFa. It was a great challenge, but the satisfaction paid off all the dedication. The entire team involved in this project feels rewarded and especially acknowledge the authors who trusted our competence to successfully perform this transition.
This issue focuses on various aspects of evaluation in Speech-Language Pathology and Audiology. It presents 17 contributions, 12 of them original articles in different specialties, two case studies - one regarding Auditory Processing and one about Dysphagia and Stroke -, one Evidence-Based Speech-Language Pathology and Audiology article that analyzes speech-language pathology production on popular singing voice, and a Brief Communication that presents the cultural equivalence of the Brazilian version of the Voice Symptom Scale - VoiSS. This issue also presents a Special Article regarding aspects of writing and quality of scientific writing, by Cáceres, Gândara and Puglisi, which will surely be of great value to readers and young authors as it presents a guide to rationally develop a scientific article.
The voice area counts with the original article by Rechenberg, Goulart and Roithmann, which presents an analytical study on the impact of labor activity in telemarketing in vocal symptoms and complaints, mapping the risk of voice problems in these professionals, as well as the possibility of negatively and significantly impacting the performance of these individuals in their work. The other contribution in the area of voice is the Brief Communication by Moreti, Zambon, Oliveira and Behlau, which offers the cultural equivalence of the Brazilian version of the Voice Symptom Scale - VoiSS, translated as ESV, an important publication for making available the use of this protocol, that is considered particularly robust for assessing the impact of dysphonia.
The area of orofacial myology is present with three articles, two more related to anatomical and functional aspects of the articulators, and a third paper that studies the association of speech disorders with orofacial motor disorders and auditory processing. The article by Berwig, Silva, Correa, Moraes, Montenegro and Ritzel compared the dimensions of the hard palate of oral and nasal breathing by different etiologies and concluded that mouth breathers have a narrower and deeper hard palate, emphasizing that subjects with habitual mouth-breathing present greater depth of this structure near the canine teeth, when compared to mouth-breathers with obstructive etiology. The second article in this specialty, by Bolzan, Souza, Boton, Silva and Correa, analyzed the type of face and head posture of children with nasal and oral breathing, and concluded that the brachyfacial type promotes nasal breathing mode; in addition, the study found that head posture is not influenced either by the breathing mode nor the etiology of oral breathing. The third study, by Rabelo, Alves, Goulart, Friche, Lemos, Campos and Friche, described speech disorders in school children from first to fourth grade, and found a high occurrence of these changes associated with other disorders, such as orofacial motor problems and/or auditory processing, which reinforces the importance of the need for early diagnosis and intervention.
The areas of language and audiology contributed with four articles each. The first language article, by Oliveira and Limongi studied the quality of life of parents/carergivers of children and adolescents with Down syndrome, using the questionnaire WHOCQOL-bref, and concluded that the Environment domain and the variables "instruction degree" and "social economic level" are the aspects that influence the perception of quality of life of parents/caregivers. The second article, by Lamônica, Maximino, Silva, Yacubian-Fernandes and Crenitte, analyzed the performance of individuals with myelomeningocele regarding psycholinguistic and scholar skills, concluding that the main alterations are in the tasks of reading speed and rapid automatic naming. The third article was written by Nascimento, Carvalho, Kida and Avila, and studied fluency and reading comprehension in students with reading difficulties, concluding that these two aspects are correlated, and that the changes affect the decoding of reading comprehension, which does not improve with the level of school education. The third article, by Okuda, Pinheiro, Germano, Padula, Lourencetti, Santos and Capellini, characterized and compared the fine motor, sensory and perceptive functions of children with attention deficit disorder with hyperactivity and concluded that children with ADHD showed under performance in relation to students with good academic performance concerning fine motor, sensory and perception functions. These difficulties can cause significant impact on the academic performance, impairing the development of written language, causing dysgraphia in these students.
The first article of the audiology area, by Didone, Kunst, Weich, Tochetto and Mota, studied the changes in the medial olivocochlear system in children with speech disorders and did not identify changes to the evaluation of transient evoked otoacoustic emissions (TEOAE). The second article, by Marculino, Rabelo and Schochat, aimed to establish standard criteria for the Gaps-in-Noise test (GIN) for 9-year-old children, and presented normative values for right and left ears. The third study, by Souza, Osborn, Gil and Iorio, offered the translation and adaptation of the questionnaire ABEL - Auditory Behavior in Everyday Life into Brazilian Portuguese, showing consistency between the original and the produced version, which allows the use of this instrument in order to detailing the development of auditory behaviors of Brazilian children that use hearing aids. The last original article in audiology is the presentation of a newborn hearing screening program for newborns whose mothers are seropositive for HIV, by Manfredi, Zuanetti, Mishima and Granzotto. They found no association between the absence of transient evoked otoacoustic emissions and exposure of the infant to HIV during pregnancy. In addition to these four original articles, the audiology area is represented by a Case Study written by Salvador, Pereira Moraes, Cruz and Feniman on the lack of alterations in auditory processing of a 17-year-old adolescent with unilateral hearing loss, except regarding localization of the sound source. The second Case Study presented in this issue, by Itaquy, Favero, Ribeiro, Barea, Almeida and Mancopes, analyzed the occurrence of dysphagia after acute ischemic stroke during the 48 hours of onset of symptoms and confirmed a relationship between severity of the patient and the manifestation of neurological dysphagia.
The contribution to the section Evidence-Based Speech-Language Pathology and Audiology, by Drumond, Vieira and Oliveira, presented a literature review on the Brazilian Speech-Language Pathology scientific production in the last decade on singing voice, and found that the number of studies is still small when compared to the range of musical genres and the uniqueness of the popular singer.
We take this editorial to say that we designed an aggressive editorial strategy for the year 2012, in order to improve the visibility of our scientific production and the impact factor of the JSBFa. Some of the main actions involve investments in enhancing the quality of the work of national reviewers, increasing the participation of international reviewers, ensuring punctuality and decrease of the time taken in the evaluation process, seeking national representation in the origin of the studies published, and a professional publishing that helps us to improve the reviewing, standardization, and translation processes of the articles. We want our science to occupy the place it deserves, and look forward to your contribution.
May 2012 be a year of great scientific progress for Speech-Language Pathology and Audiology!
Mara Behlau
Scientific Editor of the JSBFa
Publication Dates
-
Publication in this collection
09 Feb 2012 -
Date of issue
Dec 2011
