Editorial

Dra. Fernanda Dreux M. Fernandes

The last weeks were full of emotions and some frustrations. Information about three different issues made me think about "Phonoaudiology" as a group of professionals/researchers moving toward strengthening the field as a science and reaffirming its quality. I believe that we are, again, on a moment of reassessment and redefinition of paths.

The denial by Thomson Reuters on the indexation process in the Web of Sciences after such a long wait was definitely a great deception. As it was justified by the statement that "there is much competition in the area of audiology and it is already 'covered' by the ISI", I tried to explain that 'Phonoaudiology' is a specific science that includes but is not limited to audiology. This explanation didn't lead to a second analysis and the answer still referred to audiology. Personally this process caused a great disappointment but also the chance to receive support and incentive from several people, especially the executive editor, Mara Behlau, and SBFa president's, Irene Marchesan. This situation indicated the need of changes that are being planned and will be broadly discussed before implementation.

Very good news was the agreement between SciELO and Thomson Reuters, that will make the whole SciELO collection available in the WoS data base. It will bring more visibility to the Brazilian scientific production and, therefore, more international exchanges.

Last week I was in Brasília, for the CNPq's (National Research Council) meeting. Unfortunately the demand of our area is still much smaller than the other two (Physical Education and Physical Therapy and Occupational Therapy). Since the resources are distributed proportionally within the committee according to the demand of each area and since there was no increase in the total value available to this edict, the financial support received by researchers in communication sciences and disorders is almost the same received in 2011. The information that there would be scholarships associated to the supported researches was also frustrating because the number of scholarships was very small, attending a very small part of the requests within the whole committee. The important news from this meeting refers to the changes on the Lattes platform that will enable better access to specific information. It is important that all the researchers check the new areas available and complete the information that is missing.

In this issue of the Revista da Sociedade Brasileira de Fonoaudiologia we have five articles about researches involving audiology. Alvarenga, Gadret, Araújo and Bevilacqua report the research called Newborn hearing screening: reasons for the evasion of families in the process of early detection. The study Children with phenylketonuria: basic audiological evaluation and suppression of otoacoustic emissions is described by Ribeiro, Torres, Starling, Iório and Mancini. Santos, Seligman and Tochetto studied The acoustical comfort in the perception of literate school children. Silva and Dias present the research Differences on interhemispherical auditory integration among female and male: preliminary study. Nishihata, Vieira, Pereira and Chiari researched the Temporal resolution, localization and auditory closure in individuals with unilateral hearing loss.

Researches in language are the theme of seven papers. Linguistic profile of children with language impairment is the title of the research by Befi-Lopes, Cáceres and Esteves. Balestro and Fernandes propose a Questionnaire about communicative difficulties perceived by parents of children of the autism spectrum. Alterations of phonological processes and severity index between students with dyslexia and students with good academic performance were studied by Cardoso, Romero and Capellini. The words elicited in the children phonological assessment and the variables age, gender and severity level of the phonological disorders was the theme of the research described by Savoldi, Gubiani, Brancalioni and Keske-Soares. Wertzner, Francisco and Pagan-Neves studied the Causal factors and application of complementary tests in speech sound disorders. Melo, Mota, Mezzomo, Brasil, Lovatto and Arzeno studied the Acoustic parameters of the voicing contrast of plosives in typical phonological development and phonological disorder. Vibrant coda acquisition: the establishment of acoustic-phonetic cues is the title of the research described by Berti and Campos.

After that Caldeira, Vieira and Behlau present a research in voice with the title Analysis of reporters' vocal changes in the presence of noise. A research on swallowing is described by Loures, Lima, Alves and Barros Filho and refers to The role of speech therapy in bottle feeding infants discharged from intensive care unit.

Two articles refer to issues on public health. Santos, Rodrigues, Silva, Matos, Jerônimo and Teixeira studied the Perception of Community Health Workers regarding risks for hearing and communication disorders. A special paper comes from Bulgaria, was written by Tcholakova, Georgieva and Ivanov and reports the Bulgarian experience on Linking teaching and research in the field of public health: the Bulgarian experience.

The two case report papers involve the areas of voice and swallowing. The study reported by Fouquet, Vieira, Murata and Gonçalves describes the Hands-over-mouth exercise in supracricoid horizontal partial laryngectomy in six patients. Mota, Santos, Vasconcelos, Mota and Mota describe the study Applying the technique of sustained maximum phonation time in a female patient with adductor spasmodic dysphonia: a case report.

The two literature revision papers refer to swallowing and aphasia. Pansarini, Sassi, Mangilli, Fortunato-Tavares, Limongi and Andrade present the paper Deglutition of pasty and solid food: a critical review of the literature. The Rehabilitation of post-stroke communication impairments is the theme of the paper wrote by Gindri and Fonseca.

Navas comments the paper Annual research review: the nature and classification of reading disorders – a commentary on proposals for DSM-5 wrote by Snowling and Hulme and published on the Journal of Child Psychology and Psychiatry.

Silva reviewed the paper by Sforza, Rosati, de Menezes, Musto and Toma about EMG analysis of trapezius and masticatory muscles: experimental protocol and data reproducibility published on the Journal of Oral Rehabilitation.

The abstracts presented refer to dissertations presented recently. Ribeiro studied a Proposal of differentiated care to parents of children with complaints of language alterations. Paciornik researched The life of words and their language actions. Narratives of mothers of deaf children. The theme of Eyng's dissertation was The deaf people inclusion on regular education from deaf students', families', teachers' and interpreters' perspectives.

When I write an editorial I am always proud of the Brazilian "Phonoaudiology". This time this pride is also mixed with a sense of frustration by not being able to demonstrate more clearly the power and the quality of the Brazilian scientific production to an international group. The quality of the professional training in Brazil and especially is comprehensiveness is being recognized in several international forums. Probably it is up to us to improve the means of disseminating the quality of our science overcoming barriers related to language, information and even, maybe, some prejudice.

Participating in this process has been motive of pride and pleasure. We that are more directly involved with the publication of the SBFa' journals have tried to share this process with all the interested persons. If we couldn't do more is because we have personally limited time and resources. We will have another meeting with the editorial board and the reviewers of the RSBFa and the JSBFa during the XX Congresso Brasileiro de Fonoaudiologia. It would be very good to be able to talk also with our readers and authors. Contribute with your critics and suggestions by email or talking to us during the congress.

Fernanda Dreux

Scientific editor of RSBF

Publication Dates

• Publication in this collection
  25 Sept 2012
• Date of issue
  2012