Audiological implications of COVID-19: an integrative literature review

ABSTRACT Purpose: to survey the national and international literature on the impacts of the coronavirus infection on the auditory system. Methods: an integrative review with search in the BIREME, PubMed, Scopus, and Web of Sciences databases. Inclusion criteria: articles in Portuguese and English whose subject was the coronavirus infection and its effects on the auditory system. Exclusion criteria: information from books and/or chapters, letters to editors, review articles, experience reports. The search strategy was based on the following combined descriptors, respectively in Portuguese and English: “Infecções por coronavírus”, “Audição”, “Perda auditiva”, “Coronavirus infections”, “Hearing”, “Hearing Loss”. Results: out of 43 articles found, two approached the issue. The first study assessed 20 patients that tested positive for COVID-19, though asymptomatic, who underwent pure-tone threshold audiometry and otoacoustic emissions. A significant increase in the auditory thresholds at high frequencies and a smaller response amplitude in the transient evoked otoacoustic emissions of those who tested positive for COVID-19 were observed when compared to that of controls. The second study reported the case of an asymptomatic 35-year-old COVID-19 female patient, who complained of otalgia and tinnitus, after being contaminated. The pure-tone threshold audiometry and tympanometry indicated mild unilateral (right ear) conductive hearing loss, with a type B tympanometric curve on that side. Conclusion: the studies included in this review showed different consequences of COVID-19 on hearing, with possible impairments on the sensory and mechanical structures of the auditory system. The knowledge of COVID-19 is limited, and further studies on its real impact on the auditory system are necessary.

Association between speech and dental occlusion changes in children with cleft lip and palate and time of primary plastic surgeries

ABSTRACT Purpose: to describe the changes in speech and dental occlusion in children with cleft lip and palate and verify their association with each other and with the time of primary plastic surgeries. Methods: a cross-sectional study with collected data on the subjects’ identification, age at the time of primary surgeries, and clinical assessment of speech and dental occlusion. The chi-square test, Fisher's exact test, and t-test were used to verify the associations between the variables at the 5% significance level (p < 0.05). Results: the sample comprised 11 children aged 6 to 10 years, most of whom were males, self-reported white, with trans-incisive foramen cleft, predominantly on the left side. The mean age at lip repair surgery was 6 months, and 13 months at palatoplasty. Among the main dental occlusion changes, posterior and anterior crossbite stood out. All the subjects presented changed speech, with a prevalence of cases with dentoalveolar and palatine deformities, followed by passive and active changes. Subjects with anterior crossbite tended to have undergone primary lip repair surgery at a mean of four months earlier than the subjects without anterior crossbite. Conclusions: the associations between speech and dental occlusion changes, and between these and the time of primary plastic surgeries were not statistically significant. Even though it is known that early lip repair surgery is ideal to favor oral functions and aesthetics, the results revealed a tendency towards anterior crossbite, in these subjects.

Maximum phonation time in the pulmonary function assessment

ABSTRACT Purpose: to evaluate the reliability of the maximum phonation time (MPT) and Vital Capacity intra and inter-examiner, by means of the single-breath counting test (CT) and the sustained /a/ phoneme, and the slow vital capacity (SVC). Methods: a reliability study carried out in three groups of healthy individuals, each group with 30 volunteers, allocated according to age. SVC was measured using a spirometer, while the MPT was assessed by the phoneme /a/ and CT. The data were analyzed using SPSS version 20.0. Initially, descriptive statistics were used and for data reliability, the intraclass correlation coefficient (ICC). Results: the Intraclass Correlation Coefficients (ICC) were considered excellent, with significant results above 0.92 for SVC and greater than 0.79 for CT and phoneme /a/. Regarding the inter-examiner evaluation, the ICCs were also significant for both SVC with values greater than 0.96, and for CT and the phoneme /a/ with values greater than 0.85. The error inherent in the technique was assessed using the standard error of the measurement for intra and inter-examiner analyses with values ranging from 1.79 to 3.29 for phoneme /a/, 3.20 to 6.58 for CT and 65, 05 to 206.73 for SVCml. Conclusion: phonation techniques with the phoneme /a/ and CT, as well as SVC, have an excellent reliability, due to intra and inter-examiner agreement measures.

Vocabulary performance of students with and without difficulties learning to read and write

ABSTRACT Purpose: to compare vocabulary performances and verify the lexical competence of students with and without difficulties learning to read and write. Methods: 93 first-grade students were divided into Group I (50 students without difficulties) and Group II (43 students with difficulties learning to read and write). They were administered the Child Language Test focusing on vocabulary. The analysis considered aspects of usual word designation, non-designation, and substitution process. The data analysis was conducted with the Mann-Whitney test, with a p-value ≤ 0.05. Results: there were significant performances in the comparison between the groups in all the conceptual fields analyzed. There was no significance for either group regarding the conceptual fields of Foods, Furniture and Appliances, Places, and Professions in non-designation; regarding Means of Transportation in substitution processes; regarding Toys and Musical Instruments in both non-designation and substitution processes. Group I had higher means than Group II in usual word designation, and lower ones in non-designation and substitution processes. Conclusion: students with difficulties learning to read and write had greater difficulties in usual word designation, as well as higher error indexes in substitution processes and non-designation, which reveals a deficient vocabulary concerning lexical access in comparison with students without difficulties.

Ultrasonography applied to the description of voice quality settings in adult speakers of Brazilian Portuguese

ABSTRACT Purpose: to relate ultrasound images with auditory-perceptual data on vocal quality settings in adult speakers of Brazilian Portuguese. Methods: the corpus consisted of speech samples (sentences contained in the instructional material of the Vocal Profile Analysis Scheme - VPAS-PB) from seven adult subjects of both genders, recorded simultaneously by acoustic and ultrasonographic means. Data analysis was based on auditory-perceptual judgments of vocal quality and ultrasound images generated by the AAA software. Results: vocal quality settings related to the position of the tongue body and the extension of the tongue and jaw found correspondences to the contours of ultrasound images of the tongue in selected key segments (oral vowels), especially those with greater degrees of manifestation. Conclusion: there were correspondences between vocal quality settings detected in the perceptual sphere and their respective tongue body and jaw ultrasound images.

Teachers’ knowledge on Educational Speech-Language-Hearing Pathology and the relevance of communication to learning

ABSTRACT Purpose: to investigate the teachers’ knowledge on educational speech-language-hearing pathology and the importance of auditory and linguistic skills to learning, comparing the answers of public-school teachers with those of private ones. Methods: an exploratory study with a mixed quantitative and qualitative approach, conducted with 25 teachers working in kindergarten and elementary school. Data were collected with a questionnaire comprising 19 closed-ended questions (which dealt with the relationship between language, hearing, and learning) and one open-ended question (which approached their knowledge on educational speech-language-hearing pathology. The quantitative data were analyzed with descriptive and inferential statistical analyses, and the qualitative ones, with theme modality content analysis. Results: in general, the teachers recognize the importance of hearing and language to learning, although they do not feel prepared to deal with it at school, neither do they have more specific knowledge of auditory processing. The results obtained in the open-ended question revealed an also limited knowledge on educational speech-language-hearing pathology. In this sense, their greatest source of information was some teachers’ previous experience with the work of a speech-language-hearing pathologist within the educational setting. No important differences were observed between the answers given by public school teachers and those by private ones. Conclusion: the teachers’ knowledge on educational speech-language-hearing pathology and the importance of hearing and language to learning is still limited, which requires more investment in the training in this field.