Editorial
The openning edition of the JSBFa is a benchmark of the successful succession of the Revista Pro-fono, launching a new management period that is now under the responsibility of the Sociedade Brasileira de Fonoaudiologia - SBFa. The first volume of 2011 is the result of the Speech-Language scientific community support that with great effort and enthusiasm sent papers, which were carefully peer reviewed by distinguished reviewers with the aim of honoring the history of this journal and to present a noble scenario of our national production. This volume provides a wide panorama of intervention researches on language, voice, audiology and orofacial myology exclusively published online, both in Portuguese and English, allowing greater international visibility to our contribution. The first volume presents with 11 original articles, two case studies, a brief communication and an article about evidence-based Speech-Language Pathology.
The first two studies are about children with autistic spectrum. The Fernandes, Amato, Balestro and Molini-Avejonas' paper from the FMUSP about the communication and language education of 26 mothers of children with autistic spectrum concluded that there was a positive impact of the systematized instruction administered in addition to the language therapy process over the child's life; the authors emphasize the fact that the education alone does not replace therapy, however it may offer relevant results. On the other hand, the Tamanaha and Perissinoto's paper from UNIFESP analyzed and compared the extension and rate of advance process of 11 boys with either autism or Asperger that were distributed into two groups; one that was submitted both to direct and indirect therapy and the other to solely indirect therapy; the group that underwent direct and indirect therapy showed a tendency towards presenting a better performance and the children with Asperger diagnosis showed a better development.
Additionally, the school language area had two studies. The article of Silva and Capellini, from UNESP-Marília that examined the efficacy of a Speech-Language Pathology remediation program in 40 school children, from which 20 had learning difficulties; the proposed intervention showed positive effects on the development of cognitive-linguistic skills, reading abilities and text comprehension of third to fifth grade children. Pinto and Navas, from FCMSCSP characterized the reading of 32 sixth grade school children as far as temporal parameters are concerned and compared the performance of reading fluency pre and post-treatment program based on prosody patterns; there were positive changes related to mean reading rate, number of misread words and reading prosody quality, showing the benefits of the program.
The voice area was represented by Siracusa, Oliveira, Madazio and Behlau, from CEV that analyzed the immediate effects of the sounded blowing exercise in 33 elderly people without vocal complaint. They observed a positive impact on the vocal quality of the individuals after the execution of the semi-occluded vocal tract exercise by means of perceptual analysis.
The audiology area had four interesting studies. One of them characterized the suspected hearing loss process for hearing impairment intervention; another one was about worker's hearing protection, another about vestibular rehabilitation and finally a last one about hearing aid adaptation. The study of Sígolo and Lacerda, from UNICAMP identified and detailed the present situation of the hearing impaired children diagnosis and treatment via pre-lingual patients' records analysis from two counties of Campinas. Unfortunately, this study concluded that the suspected hearing loss, the first appointment, the diagnosis, the intervention and the hearing aid adaptation still happen tardily, with big gaps between the stages, even in well developed regions of Brazil. The Rocha, Santos, Moreira, Neves-Lobo and Samelli's paper, from FMUSP investigated the effectiveness of an education program about hearing protection in 78 workers exposed to occupational noise, highlighting the benefits of the utilization of a questionnaire as a stable and viable tool for the working environment. The vestibular rehabilitation study of Morozetti, Ganança and Chiari, from UNIFESP compared different rehabilitation protocols in 20 patients with peripheral deviation and concluded that the intervention provided benefits independently on the technique and that the personalized protocol was more effective than the vestibulocular reflex stimulation.
The Magalhães and Iório's paper, from UNIFESP investigated the influence of the hearing aid use over a period of one year on the participation restriction of daily activities and cognitive processes of 50 elderly people submitted to Speech-Language intervention. They concluded that there was less perception of the restrictions after the intervention with a significant improvement assessed by the MEEM test.
The orofacial myology area contributed with two studies. The first paper of Medeiros, Oliveira, Fernandes, Guardachoni, Aquino, Rubinick, Zveibil and Gabriel, from the Hospital e Maternidade Neomater characterized a technique of feeding transition from the enteral route to breast feeding in 35 premature newborn babies with and without important medical incidents. They found that the suggested technique provided hospital discharge of the babies that had exclusively breast feeding without differences between the two groups. The work of Muzulan and Gonçalves, from Instituto da Voz - Centro Avançado em Fonoaudiologia, Maringá City about the ludic process of removing thumb sucking and pacifier of 15 children aged between four and eight years. They observed that twelve children quit the sucking habits within 10 sessions in which the awareness was worked by means of ludic activities.
Furthermore, two study cases are presented, one of them about the treatment with rothics and their generalization obtained by two models of phonological therapy by Donicht, Pagliarin, Mota and Keske-Soares, from UFSM in which four children with phonological deviation are presented. They analyzed the phonological system changes and their generalization obtained after treatment. The second case study analyzes the progress and results of Speech-language therapy in the Prader-Willi syndrome, which is presented by Misquiatti, Cristovão and Brito, from UNESP-Marília. They detail the speech-language intervention of an eight year old boy realized in a clinic-school setting, describing the four-year follow up and the development of the phonological, syntatic, lexical and pragmatic language skills.
The study that presents the evidence-based Speech-Language Pathology belongs to Caldas, Facundes, Mélo, Pinheiro Júnior, Dourado Filho and Silva, from UFPE. They evaluated by means of a systematic review of the literature the olfactory and gustatory functions of individuals submitted to total laryngectomy. They analyzed 16 articles from several database; the analysis concluded that although there is an agreement about the decrease of those functions by the interruption of the nasal airflow, the mechanisms involved in it are still not clear specially as far as the olfactory changes are concerned.
The brief communication of Moraes and Andrade, from FMUSP proposes a pannel with 12 performance indicators for the management of a swallowing rehabilitation program for hospital settings. They highlight the eficacy and effectiveness of the speech-language pathology rehabilitation programs.
Finally, I would like to point out the importance of the work of Fernanda Miranda, a dear partner, in the executive editorial board of two scientific periodics, the tradicional Revista da SBFa and the JSBFa that received all the care and protection from its sister publication and the team of such periodic.
I take the advantage to welcome Gary Weismer, the new editor-in-chief of Folia Phoniatrica et Logopedica, which is the oficial periodical publication of the International Association of Logopedics and Phoniatrics - IALP, who replaces Harm K. Schütte, after a leadership of 11 years of the most established journal in the area of human communication disorders. I am sure that Professor Weismer will fight for exhibiting the scientific stamina from several parts of the world, working to provide a democratic context in the international publication.
I appreciate the Speech-Language Pathologists reliance. I acknowledge that a colective effort allowed the production of this first volume of the JSBFa. May the strenght of the authors, reviewers and editors be rewarded by the reading of our coleagues and professionals alike. May the results become applied science to the improvement of the services that we deliver to our patients throughout the distant regions of Brazil.
Thanks for the trust!
Mara Behlau
Scientific Editor of JSBFa
President of SBFa
Publication Dates
-
Publication in this collection
02 May 2011 -
Date of issue
Mar 2011
