Editorial

EDITORIAL

Claudia Regina Furquim de Andrade

Professora Titular. Departamento de Fisioterapia, Fonoaudiologia e Terapia Ocupacional, Faculdade de Medicina, Universidade de São Paulo

Dear Readers:

Evidence based practice in the field of the Speech, Language and Hearing Sciences, with actions involving the quality control and the effectiveness of assessments and treatments offered to the population, will be, more and more, observed in terms of its scientific background and real application.

What does this follow-up mean? It means that there is a trend in the world to congregate knowledge, i.e. anything that is scientifically produced will be constantly assessed in terms of its procedure, method and seriousness. This knowledge will return to what is offered to the population and therefore needs to be sufficiently evaluated.

Today, this process has been controlled by the Clinical Trials, an American research support managing system that congregates researchers and institutions around the world; a system developed to test the effect of experimental drugs, equipments and procedures described in different diseases and human conditions.

The registration of a clinical trial is free and on-line on the web site of the U.S. National Institute of Health (NHI) and was developed by the National Library of Medicine.

Clinical trials should be registered for three reasons: in the U.S.A. it is a legal obligation; more and more it will be a prerequisite for the publication of manuscripts in any respected journal; there is a growing expectation of the society and of institutions that offer financial support for the development of researches to have full access to information concerning diagnosis and treatment of diseases.

The Journal Pró-Fono publishes clinical trials exclusively when these present the approval of the ethic committee of the institution where the study was developed with an informed free consent of the participants.

The Speech, Language and Hearing Sciences, as any autonomous science, generates knowledge based on research involving human beings and following predetermined protocols. These protocols can involve intervention or can be observational. The distribution of the twenty-seven articles published in the last three numbers of Pró-Fono is described on Table 1.

Regarding the total number of research articles, only five involved non-traditional procedures. Until this moment, Pró-Fono received only one manuscript that has a protocol registered in Clinical Trials; this manuscript is still under review. During this year of 2008, all editorials will have as a theme: clinical trials in the Speech, Language and Hearing Sciences. From August 2008 onwards, the Journal will recommend that research articles should present their registration protocol in Clinical Trials.

The registration of speech-language and hearing research in Clinical Trials is not yet obligatory in any part of the world. Preference is given, at this moment, for the registration of studies involving drugs and invasive procedures. The Journal Pró-Fono will make an effort for the Brazilian Speech, Language and Hearing Sciences to consolidate its position as a science and for its active participation in assessments and control of research, in a very short time.

Given this, the position of the Journal is:

"Pró-Fono Revista de Atualização Científica supports the policies established by the World Health Organization (WHO) and by the International Committee of Medical Journal Editors (ICMJE) for the registration of clinical trials, acknowledging the importance of this initiative for the international registration and divulgation of information about clinical studies, with an open access. With this, in 2009, only research manuscripts that have received an identification number in any of the Clinical Trial Registrations, validated by the criteria determined by the WHO and ICMJE, will be accepted. The registration procedures for research and researchers are available at <http://clinicaltrials.gov/>. The identification number should be registered at the end of the abstract."

With this, Pró-Fono begins a new editorial phase. I am sure that our collaborators will support us and, consequently, will present development, social relevance and scientific maturity.

Our second number of 2008 presents ten articles; eight research articles, one research letter and a case report.

The purpose of the research presented by Carvalho et al. (2008) was to assess the self-representation abilities in 100 children with ages of seven and eight years. The study investigated the relationship between the Theory of Mind and language. According to the results, the authors conclude that children around seven years have already acquired the Theory of Mind, and that the type of interaction and the presence of abstract elements during conversation can have an influence on the children's performance in tasks involving the this ability.

The manuscript presented by Barreto & Ortiz (2008) had as a purpose to investigate whether possible reductions in the articulatory rate and increase in vocal loudness, associated to the production of different speech stimuli, can have an influence on speech intelligibility measurements. Participants of this study were 30 normal speakers and 60 normal listeners. Speakers were recorded during the repetition of three lists of speech stimuli. Speech intelligibility was measured based on the orthographic transcription of the speech samples made by the listeners. The obtained results indicate that none of the investigated aspects had an influence on the intelligibility scores, thus suggesting that contextual cues have a greater impact on speech intelligibility than the independent cues given by the acoustic signal.

The study presented by Béfi-Lopes et al. (2008) had as a purpose to characterize the narration of stories by children with SLI regarding the type and content of speech and to compare their performance to that of their typically developing peers, matched according to the chronological age. The results indicted that, regardless the type of story, children with SLI have difficulties in the use of language, that is, with the linguistic abilities necessary to narrate stories and not in the perception of the characters' mental state.

Um estudo sobre a queixa de tontura em idosos foi apresentado por Gonçalves et al. (2008), tendo como objetivos descrever as causas da tontura, correlacionar sintomas e alterações na prova calórica e verificar o impacto da presbivertigem nesta população. Foram revisados os prontuários de 132 pacientes com idades acima de 60 anos atendidas em um ambulatório de Otoneurologia. Os resultados indicaram que a tontura em idosos tem causa multifatorial e que a perda da função vestibular periférica pode estar relacionada à presbivertigem.

The purpose of the study presented by Duarte et al. (2008) was to verify the applicability of the auditory steady state response (ASSR) to determine the hearing thresholds in different levels of sensorineural hearing loss. The authors suggest, based on the obtained results, that the ASSR can be used to estimate the PTA threshold, especially in cases of more severe hearing loss.

Fernandes & Miilher (2008) presented a research that had as a purpose to verify correlations between the functional communication profile of children and adolescents, with the diagnosis within the autistic spectrum, with the scores obtained in the Autistic Behavior Checklist (ABC). Participants of the study were 117 subjects, children and adolescents, with the diagnosis within the autistic spectrum, with ages between 2 and 16 years. The results indicate significant correlations between the ABC scores and the functional communication profile, with the exception for the language sub-scale. The authors conclude suggesting that the ABC should not be used as the only diagnostic instrument for this population.

The research presented by Telles & Machado (2008) had as a purpose to study the relationship between motor skills and oral motor skills in children, from the first day of life to 24 months of age. Based on the results obtained in all of the assessments of the 42 children, the authors conclude that there is a significant association between the motor and oral skills, with great variability in the ages between the 3rd and 24 months.

Jardim et al. (2008) presented a research about brainstem auditory evoked potentials in brain death. The purpose of the study was to verify the agreement between the response in the auditory brainstem audiometry and the clinical outcome, analyzing the pattern of responses to electric stimulation in patients with Glasgow coma score of 3, submitted to the auditory brainstem audiometry. The results indicate that the brainstem auditory evoked potential demonstrated to be highly specific in death prediction of patients in Glasgow coma score of 3, and was useful in assisting the diagnosis of brain death.

The research letter presented by Andrade et al. (2008) verified the effectiveness of a stuttering treatment based exclusively on the use of surface electromyography (SEMG). The results indicate that for the participants of the study the use of SEMG demonstrated to be effective in the reduction of stuttering, with no need of association to other fluency promotion techniques.

Finally, Silva et al. (2008) presented a case study about the large vestibular aqueduct syndrome (LVAS). The individual discussed in the study a female infant, who was submitted to a computerized tomography of the ears and to audiologic tests. According to the results, the authors conclude with an early hearing evaluation it is possible to diagnose sensorineural hearing loss in individuals with LVAS.

Regards,

Claudia

Referências Bibliográficas

• Andrade CRF, Sassi FC, Juste FS, Ercolin B. Modelamento da fluência com o uso da eletromiografia de superfície: estudo piloto. Pró-Fono Revista de Atualização Científica. 2008 abr-jun;20(2):129-32.
• Barreto SS, Ortiz KZ. Influência da velocidade articulatória e da intensidade na inteligibilidade de fala. Pró-Fono Revista de Atualização Científica. 2008 abr-jun;20(2):87-92.
• Béfi-Lopes DM, Bento ACP, Perissinoto J. Narração de histórias por crianças com distúrbio específico de linguagem. Pró-Fono Revista de Atualização Científica. 2008 abr-jun;20(2):93-8.
• Carvalho LRL,Mecca FFN, Lichtig I. Avaliação das habilidades de metarrepresentação em crianças de sete a oito anos. Pró-Fono Revista de Atualização Científica. 2008 abr-jun;20(2):81-6.
• Duarte JL, Alvarenga KF, Garcia TM, Costa Filho OA, Lins OG. A resposta auditiva de estado estável na avaliação auditiva: aplicação clínica. Pró-Fono Revista de Atualização Científica. 2008 abr-jun;20(2):105-10.
• Felipe L, Cunha LCM, Cunha FCM, Cintra MTG, Gonçalves DU. Presbivertigem como causa de tontura no idoso. Pró-Fono Revista de Atualização Científica. 2008 abr-jun;20(2):99-104.
• Fernandes FDM; Miilher LP. Relações entre a Autistic Behavior Checklist (ABC) e o perfil funcional da comunicação no espectro autístico. Pró-Fono Revista de Atualização Científica. 2008 abr-jun;20(2):111-6.
• Jardim M, Person OC, Rapoport PB. Potencial evocado auditivo de tronco encefálico como auxílio diagnóstico de morte encefálica. Pró-Fono Revista de Atualização Científica. 2008 abr-jun;20(2):123-8.
• Silva DPC, Montovani JC, Oliveira DT, Fioravanti MP, Tamashiro IA. Síndrome do aqueduto vestibular alargado: uma causa de disacusia neurossensorial. Pró-Fono Revista de Atualização Científica. 2008 abr-jun;20(2):133-5.
• Telles MS, Macedo CS. Relação entre desenvolvimento motor corporal e aquisição de habilidades orais. Pró-Fono Revista de Atualização Científica. 2008 abr-jun;20(2):117-22.

Publication Dates

• Publication in this collection
  08 July 2008
• Date of issue
  June 2008