Assessment of inter-examiner agreement and variability in the manual classification of auditory brainstem response.

Background: The analysis of the Auditory Brainstem Response (ABR) is of fundamental importance to the investigation of the auditory system behaviour, though its interpretation has a subjective nature because of the manual process employed in its study and the clinical experience required for its analysis. When analysing the ABR, clinicians are often interested in the identification of ABR signal components referred to as Jewett waves. In particular, the detection and study of the time when these waves occur (i.

Speech pathologists and audiologists with Ph.D. in Brazil: profile from 1976 to 2008.

Background: keeping data about Ph.D.s of speech pathologists and audiologists updated allows the retrieval of what has been developed in these fields of knowledge, besides giving a dimension of the development of the Speech, Language and Hearing Sciences in our country.

International classification of functioning, disability, and health core sets for hearing loss: a discussion paper and invitation.

The World Health Organization's International Classification of Functioning, Disability and Health (ICF) has adopted a multifactorial understanding of functioning and disability, merging a biomedical paradigm with a social paradigm into a wider understanding of human functioning. Altogether there are more than 1400 ICF-categories describing different aspects of human functioning and there is a need to developing short lists of ICF categories to facilitate use of the classification scheme in clinical practice. To our knowledge, there is currently no such standard measuring instrument to facilitate a common validated way of assessing the effects of hearing loss on the lives of adults.

Telehealth in audiology: the need and potential to reach underserved communities.

Permanent hearing loss is a leading global health care burden, with 1 in 10 people affected to a mild or greater degree. A shortage of trained healthcare professionals and associated infrastructure and resource limitations mean that hearing health services are unavailable to the majority of the world population. Utilizing information and communication technology in hearing health care, or tele-audiology, combined with automation offer unique opportunities for improved clinical care, widespread access to services, and more cost-effective and sustainable hearing health care.

Clinical masking: applicability of plateau and optimized methods in hearing thresholds testing.

Background: Many situations may raise difficulties when obtaining hearing thresholds for each ear separately. These situations demand the use of masking. The plateau method has been used for more than four decades.

Performance of elderly in a speech in noise test.

Background: speech perception of elderly, in silence and in the presence of background noise.

Aim: to characterize and compare the hearing abilities of elderly in a monaural speech perception test, in the presence and absence of background noise (Speech Discrimination Test - SDT and Speech Perception in Noise - SPIN).

Method: Participants of this study were 55 subjects of both genders, 60 years old or above, distributed in two groups: Control Group (CG), constituted by elders with no hearing loss and Study Group (SG), constituted by elders with symmetrical sensorineural hearing loss.

[Study of the hearing of rock and roll musicians].

Background: rock and roll has as one of its main characteristics the excessive sound pressure levels. Several studies have demonstrated that the sound levels of rock concerts can range from 100 to 115dB (A), with peak levels of 150dB (A).

Aim: to study the hearing of rock and roll musicians, analyzing the results of the audiological evaluation and verifying the influence of time of exposure to amplified music.

[Brazilian Ph.D. speech-language pathologist and audiologists: analysis of thesis material according to the field of practice and programs].

Background: Ph.D. programs in Speech-Language and Hearing Science.

[A study of hearing and of the auditory habits of youngsters of the city of Sorocaba--São Paulo].

Background: currently the exposure to noisy leisure activities are part of the routine of youngsters, representing a considerable risk for hearing.

Aim: to study the hearing and the auditory habits of youngsters.

Method: 75 individuals, with ages ranging from 18 to 25 years, were evaluated using pure tone audiometry and a questionnaire for the verification of their auditory habits.