Editorial

Abstract

This issue of the JSBFa presents 12 original articles, two case reports, an article on evidence-based Speech-Language Pathology and Audiology and a brief communication. The common thread is to highlight various aspects of normality in the area of human communication disorders, hearing, balance and swallowing. The area of orofacial myology contributed with four original articles, one related to aspects of swallowing, and also a critical review of the literature on exercise physiology published in the session of Evidence-Based Speech Language Pathology and Audiology. The area of language contributed with six original articles, including two on aspects of writing, one on the relationship between auditory processing and phonological awareness and another on a test for assessment of aphasia, as well as a case study on the functional aspects of communication in small children. The voice area contributed with an original article on theatre actors and a brief communication on two response modalities of a self-assessment protocol of the impact of dysphonia. The area of balance contributed with an original article that analyzed the posture based on virtual reality stimuli. The first orofacial myology article, from Ramires, Ferreira, Marchesan, Cattoni & Andrada e Silva, presents a proposal for facial type determination through anthropometry, analyzing 105 adults and concluding that some indexes and proportions vary according to facial type and gender, although anthropometric variables did not prove reliable in predicting facial types. The article from Motta, César, Bommarito & Chiari analyzed the axial force of the tongue in 92 individuals from different ages and verified that the medium period to reach the tongue's maximum force is shorter in adults, although the maximum force and the tongue's accumulated energy are not influenced by age. The article from Silva-Munhoz & Bühler describes the fluoroscopic findings of swallowing in 20 preterm infants, comparing them to 17 full-term infants. The authors concluded that preterm infants from zero to six months of age have nasopharyngeal and gastroesophageal reflux, as well as more desaturation, hypothesizing that the swallowing disorders were due to immaturity in the swallowing function. The article from Pernambuco, Silva, Lima, Cunha, Santos, Cunha & Leão characterized the electrical activity of the masseter muscle during swallowing of liquids in 14 healthy young adults and concluded that there is muscle electrical activity during this task, with different responses bilaterally, influenced by the volume swallowed. Regarding the articles on the area of language, the first contribution, from Ortiz & Costa, evaluated the use of M1-Alpha test in 30 normal subjects with low education, from both genders, to obtain reference data, and concluded that low education influenced the performance of subjects in tasks of copying, writing to dictation, reading comprehension and reading aloud. The study from Capellini, Amaral, Oliveira, Sampaio Fusco, Cervera-Mérida & Ygual-Fernández characteri...