Editorial
The JSBFa completes its first year led by the Sociedade Brasileira de Fonoaudiologia and is with a sense of achievement that we deliver the first issue of 2012. This issue focuses on intervention, in our various specialties. Out of the 16 published articles, 11 are original articles three about voice, three about audiology and five about language , three are case reports (one from international authors), one is Evidence-Based Speech-Language Pathology and Audiology and another one is a Brief Communication about autism protocols.
The first article in the voice area by Maia, Maia, Gama and Behlau investigated the immediate effects of the high pitched blowing vocal exercise in 46 young women with and without vocal complaints. The article by Goulart, Rocha and Chiari assessed the benefits of a vocal training program for group intervention, administered to 37 popular singers. The authors observed that the intervention designed is positive, especially regarding the individuals' perception about their vocal production, even if they have adapted voice. Finally, the study by Silva, Simões-Zenari and Nemr analyzed the impact of training for auditory-perceptual assessment, administered to 17 Speech-Language Pathology undergraduate students. They investigated the possibility of enhancing students' initial abilities and also the suggestion of implementing adjustments to the voice disciplines.
Regarding the audiology manuscripts, the first study by Hennig, Costa, Rossi and Moraes analyzed the effects of an auditory rehabilitation program for the temporal ordering ability of 17 elderly hearing aids users. It was observed that the auditory rehabilitation program to elderly hearing aid users provides satisfactory improvement in recognition, temporal ordering, and naming of duration and pitch patterns of sounds. The second one by Silva, Comerlatto Junior, Balen and Bevilacqua investigated the applicability of the software SARDA in the (re)habilitation of 17 hearing impaired children with cochlear implants and hearing aids users, and concluded that the auditory training with SARDA was effective, since the results indicated an improvement in the speech perception ability, both under quiet and noise conditions. The third study by Vilela, Wertzner, Sanches, Neves-Lobo and Carvallo compared the temporal processing performance of 15 children with phonological disorders submitted to formal and informal auditory training. It concluded that both trainings provide improvement in the temporal processing abilities of these children.
The area of language shows the scope of the specialty with several articles from very different themes. The study by Castro and Wertzner analyzed the effectiveness of stimulability as a complementary task to the diagnosis of speech sound disorders, administered to 130 individuals, and concluded that the stimulability test is effective to identify stimulable children among those that present lack of sounds from their phonetic inventory, without differences by gender. The study by Puglisi, Gândara, Giusti, Gouvêa and Befi-Lopes explored what measures could predict the persistency of developmental language impairment of 42 children. It concluded that the first vocabulary assessment can contribute to predict the child's therapeutic prognosis, which has clinical and scientific relevance. The study by Verzolla, Isotani and Perissinotto investigated the oral narrative abilities of 58 preschoolers, before and after stimulation, and concluded that both the adult scaffolding and the stimulation through reading children's stories contribute to the increase of the occurrence of events in the autonomous narratives. The article by Soares and Cárnio studied the phonemic awareness performance of 49 students before and after language workshops and concluded that the phonemic awareness performance of students improves after language workshops. The last one, by Costa, Backes, Pegoraro, Wiethan, Melo and Mota, analyzed the occurrence of the repair strategy of stopping among the different severities of phonological disorders in 33 children and concluded that the stopping repair strategy is more frequent in the most severe degrees of phonological disorder.
The first case report was written by Hatzelis and Murry. It describes an uncommon situation of a 24-year-old patient diagnosed with paradoxical vocal fold motion, emphasizing that the resolution of the problem may require a prolonged voice treatment. The second case by Furlan, Fukuda and Granzotti aimed to characterize the phonological awareness abilities of a child with Acquired Immunodeficiency Syndrome (AIDS) before and after speech-language therapy, identifying interesting aspects in her evolution. The last case report by Ceron and Keske-Soares analyzed the therapeutic progress of five children with phonological disorder, submitted to the Multiple Oppositions Approach.
The contribution to the section Evidence-Based Speech-Language Pathology and Audiology, by Silva, Gonçalves and Alvarenga, critically analyzed the inclusion of individuals with special needs in regular education in Brazil, concluding that, in general, the school receives individuals with special needs; however, there is a long way to go to actually include them.
The Brief Communication by Santos, Barbosa, Pimentel, Lacerda, Balestro, Amato and Fernandes compared the results of the instruments Autism Behavior Checklist and Childhood Autism Rating Scale in the identification and characterization of 28 subjects within autism spectrum disorders and concluded that the associated use of both protocols offer an important diagnostic tool.
The rich panorama of Speech-Language Pathology and Audiology performance in different human communication disorders was again reflected in this issue. We wanted to celebrate this first year of JSBFa, thanking researchers and graduation teachers for the support, trust and all efforts to improving the contributions forwarded for publication.
Mara Behlau
Scientific editor of the JSBFa
Publication Dates
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Publication in this collection
29 Mar 2012 -
Date of issue
2012
