There was no benefit from the use of antioxidant agents for tinnitus in this sample.

CONTEXT AND OBJECTIVE: Oral narrative is a means of language development assessment. However, standardized data for deaf patients are scarce.The aim here was to compare the use of narrative competence between hearing-impaired and normal-hearing children. DESIGN AND SETTING:Analytical cross-sectional study at the Department of Speech-Language and Hearing Sciences, Universidade Federal de São Paulo.METHODS: Twenty-one moderately to profoundly bilaterally hearing-impaired children (cases) and 21 normal-hearing children without language abnormalities (controls), matched according to sex, age, schooling level and school type, were studied. A board showing pictures in a temporally logical sequence was presented to each child, to elicit a narrative, and the child's performance relating to narrative structure and cohesion was measured. The frequencies of variables, their associations (Mann-Whitney test) and their 95% confidence intervals was analyzed. RESULTS:The deaf subjects showed poorer performance regarding narrative structure, use of connectives, cohesion measurements and general punctuation (P ≤ 0.05). There were no differences in the number of propositions elaborated or in referent specification between the two groups.The deaf children produced a higher proportion of orientation-related propositions (P = 0.001) and lower proportions of propositions relating to complicating actions (P = 0.015) and character reactions (P = 0.005).CONCLUSION: Hearing-impaired children have abnormalities in different aspects of language, involving form, content and use, in relation to their normal-hearing peers. Narrative competence was also associated with the children's ages and the school type.RESUMO CONTEXTO E OBJETIVO: A narrativa oral constitui elemento de avaliação do desenvolvimento lingüístico, entretanto, são escassos os dados padronizados para pacientes surdos. O objetivo foi comparar o uso das competências narrativas entre crianças deficientes auditivas e ouvintes. TIPO DE ESTUDO E LOCAL: Estudo transversal analítico no Departamento de Fonoaudiologia, Universidade Federal de São Paulo.MÉTODO: Foram avaliadas 21 crianças com deficiência auditiva de grau moderado a profundo bilateral (casos) e 21 crianças ouvintes sem alterações de linguagem (controles) pareadas por sexo, idade, grau de escolaridade e tipo de escola frequentada. Foi apresentada uma prancha com figuras em sequência lógico-temporal para cada criança, para elicitar uma narrativa, e foi medido o desempenho na estrutura da narrativa e coesão. Foram analisadas as frequências das variáveis, suas associações (teste de Mann-Whitney) e intervalos de confiança de 95%. RESULTADOS:As crianças surdas apresentaram desempenho pior, na estrutura da narrativa, uso de conjunções, medidas de coesão e pontuação geral da narrativa (P ≤ 0,05). Não houve diferença no número de proposições elaboradas e especificação de referentes nos dois grupos. Os surdos produziram maior proporção de proposições do tipo orientação (P = 0,001) e menor proporção dos tipos ações complicador...

Based on the obtained results, the initial hypothesis of association between the development of vocal disorders among the subjects and the adversities present in their work environment and organization was confirmed.

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Purpose: to describe clustering and switching characteristics in semantic and phonetic verbal fluency of hearing-impaired adults -Brazilian Portuguese speakers -and to verify if there is relation between this characteristics and the total number of words evoked and biosocial factors. Methods: 42 hearing-impaired adults, Brazilian-Portuguese speakers, were included. All performed the verbal fluency test by semantic and phonemic clue ("animals" and "letter F", respectively).