OBJETIVO: Descrever alterações de fala em escolares de 1ª a 4ª série e investigar a existência de associação entre essas alterações e os distúrbios de motricidade orofacial (MO) e de processamento auditivo. MÉTODOS: Estudo transversal com amostra aleatória e estratificada composta por 288 escolares, calculada com base num universo de 1.189 crianças matriculadas em escolas públicas da área de abrangência de um centro de saúde de Belo Horizonte. A idade mediana foi de 8,9 anos, sendo 49,7% meninos. Foram utilizados: protocolo de MO adaptado do Roteiro para Avaliação Miofuncional; prova de Fonologia do Teste de Linguagem Infantil ABFW; e avaliação simplificada do processamento auditivo. Os dados foram analisados estatisticamente. RESULTADOS: Das crianças avaliadas, 31,9% apresentaram alteração de fala. Destas, 18% apresentaram desvio fonético, 9,7% desvio fonológico e 4,2% fonético e fonológico. Observou-se variação linguística na fala de 38,5% das crianças. Houve maior proporção de crianças com desvio fonético isolado na 1ª série e de crianças menores de 8 anos com desvio fonético e fonológico. Verificou-se associação entre desvio fonético e alterações de motricidade orofacial e entre desvio fonológico e alterações de processamento auditivo. CONCLUSÃO: A prevalência de alterações de fala em escolares de 1ª a 4ª série é considerada alta. Além disso, estas são associadas a outras alterações fonoaudiológicas, o que sugere que uma pode ser consequência de outra, apontando para a necessidade de diagnóstico e intervenções precoces.

Acoustic parameters have a direct effect on the speech intelligibility of students. Noise contributes to a decrease in their understanding of information presented orally, which can lead to negative consequences in their education and their social integration as future professionals.

Teachers are professionals with high prevalence of dysphonia, whose main risk factors are the large work hours in classrooms with the presence of background noise. The purpose of the study was to calculate the phonation time and the cycle dose of teachers with dysphonia and teachers without voice disorders during the class. There were two groups analyzed: five teachers with functional dysphonia were the first group and five teachers without voice disorders were the second group. For the data was used the VoxLog® dosimeter and the parameters were: intensity; fundamental frequency; phonation time and cycle dose. The statistical analysis used ANOVA, Student's T-test, and Kruskal-Wallis test. Dysphonic teachers showed major values of phonation time and cycle dose compared with teachers without voice disorders. The dysphonia is related to extended period of speech time and greater exposure of the tissue of the vocal fold to phonotrauma.

Auditory and nonauditory symptoms are frequent in workers from mobile support units. An association between the worker's symptoms and the performed function was also observed. The results indicate a need of developing preventive actions regarding general health, which are aimed at the preservation of hearing health and quality of life of these professionals.

No abstract

Objective:To investigate the prevalence of oral language, orofacial motor skill and auditory processing disorders in children aged 4-10 years and verify their association with age and gender.Methods:Cross-sectional study with stratified, random sample consisting of 539 students. The evaluation consisted of three protocols: orofacial motor skill protocol, adapted from the Myofunctional Evaluation Guidelines; the Child Language Test ABFW - Phonology; and a simplified auditory processing evaluation. Descriptive and associative statistical analyses were performed using Epi Info software, release 6.04. Chi-square test was applied to compare proportion of events and analysis of variance was used to compare mean values. Significance was set at p≤0.05.Results:Of the studied subjects, 50.1% had at least one of the assessed disorders; of those, 33.6% had oral language disorder, 17.1% had orofacial motor skill impairment, and 27.3% had auditory processing disorder. There were significant associations between auditory processing skills’ impairment, oral language impairment and age, suggesting a decrease in the number of disorders with increasing age. Similarly, the variable "one or more speech, language and hearing disorders" was also associated with age.Conclusions:The prevalence of speech, language and hearing disorders in children was high, indicating the need for research and public health efforts to cope with this problem.

No abstract

Purpose: to investigate the relationship between the background noise level in classrooms and the auditory temporal ordering ability for verbal sounds. Methods: a descriptive cross-sectional study of a sample of 209 students aged seven to ten years. Noise assessment was performed in 13 classrooms at eight public schools in Belo Horizonte. The procedure was based on the measurement of the the acoustic parameter named equivalent sound pressure level considering empty and furnished classrooms, according to the standard American National Standards Institute (ANSI) S12.60. To assess auditory temporal ordering ability for verbal sounds on students, verbal sequential memory test. For statistical analysis, noise has been categorized by the median value and related to student achievement on the test. Results: with the test results, most students showed normal results and no difference was found related to sex and age. All classrooms had values above the recommended by international standards (ANSI S12.60 and Bulletin 93) and national (Brazilian Association of Technical Standards -NBR10152), which set up appropriate values. By relating the noise with student performance on the test, there were differences, with greater occurrence of changes in the students belonging to the noisiest rooms. Conclusion: the background noise level measured in classrooms are above of those permitted by the standards and there was no relationship between the background noise level in the classrooms and the level of difficulty in auditory temporal ordering ability.