PURPOSE:To perform the cross-cultural adaptation of the Vocal Fatigability Scale for Teachers (VFS-T) to Brazilian Portuguese (BP). METHOD:The procedures followed the recommendations of Beaton et al. and the guidelines of the International Test Commission (ITC). Originally developed and validated in Spanish, the EFV-D assesses vocal fatigability in teachers. It consists of 17 items divided into two factors: 11 related to sensations during voice use and six related to recovery strategies and limitations due to excessive vocal use. The process comprised five stages: (1) translation into BP by two speech-language pathologists and one sworn translator, all Brazilian and fluent in Spanish; (2) synthesis of the translations; (3) pre-testing with 23 elementary, secondary, and higher education teachers, who evaluated the relevance of the items; (4) back-translation performed by one speech-language pathologist and one non-specialist translator; and (5) consensus of the versions and development of the final version by an expert committee. RESULTS:During translation, adjustments were required in the title of factor 2 and all items for better interpretation, with 15 items reformulated and two content-adjusted. In the back-translation, there were structural discrepancies in 14 items and content discrepancies in 3, which were resolved by the expert committee. Overall, teachers assigned satisfactory levels of importance, clarity, and interpretation to most items. Those with a relevance index below 50% were modified according to equivalence criteria. CONCLUSION:The cross-cultural adaptation of the EFV-D into PB resulted in the final version entitled the Vocal Fatigability Scale for Teachers (EFV-P). Future studies should be conducted to verify its validity and reliability.
RESUMO O Atraso Motor de Fala (AMF) caracteriza-se por dificuldade na execução motora, resultando em fala ininteligível, com alterações na precisão articulatória, estabilidade, voz e prosódia, além de dificuldades na dissociação dos articuladores e na presença de movimentos excessivos para a idade. O objetivo deste estudo foi descrever, por meio de quatro estudos de caso longitudinais, o desempenho de crianças brasileiras com AMF submetidas ao Rapid Syllable Transition Treatment (ReST), verificando aquisição, retenção e generalização. Participaram quatro crianças monolíngues, entre cinco e oito anos, diagnosticadas com AMF. A intervenção foi realizada por teleatendimento síncrono, duas vezes por semana, durante seis semanas. Foram aplicadas sondagens em diferentes momentos da terapia, envolvendo pseudopalavras treinadas e não treinadas, frases, palavras reais e itens de controle. Os resultados mostraram aumento progressivo da pontuação em todos os aspectos avaliados. Observou-se melhora significativa na acurácia dos fonemas, no acento lexical e na coarticulação, confirmando aquisição, retenção e generalização. Conclui-se que o ReST mostrou-se um método promissor para crianças com AMF, inclusive em formato de teleatendimento, configurando-se como alternativa terapêutica promissora fundamentada nos princípios da aprendizagem motora e em critérios linguísticos na seleção de estímulos.
Speech Motor Delay (SMD) is characterized by difficulties in motor execution, resulting in unintelligible speech, with changes in articulatory precision, stability, voice, and prosody, as well as reduced articulatory dissociation and excessive movements for age. The objective of this study was to describe, through four longitudinal case studies, the performance of Brazilian children with SMD submitted to the Rapid Syllable Transition Treatment (ReST), verifying acquisition, retention, and generalization. Four monolingual children, aged five to eight years and diagnosed with SMD, participated. The intervention was conducted via synchronous telepractice, twice a week, over six weeks. Probes of trained and untrained pseudowords, sentences, real words, and control items were applied at different stages of therapy. The results showed progressive improvement in all evaluated aspects. Significant gains were observed in phoneme accuracy, lexical stress, and coarticulation, confirming acquisition, retention, and generalization. It is concluded that ReST is effective for children with SMD, including when applied through telepractice, representing a promising evidence-based therapeutic alternative grounded in motor learning principles and supported by linguistically controlled stimuli selection.
PURPOSE:To analyze whether children with phonological disorder present alterations in the neural coding of speech, using Frequency Following Response (FFR) under monaural and binaural conditions. METHODS:This is an analytical, observational, cross-sectional study with a sample of 21 children with phonological disorders and 21 with typical development. They underwent the following procedures: medical history survey, phonological assessment, inspection of the external auditory canal, and audiological and electrophysiological evaluation, performed in one or two sessions. FFR was performed with the speech stimulus /da/, in two sweeps of 3000 stimuli at 80 dB HL, with a rate of 10.9 stimuli/second, a duration of 40 ms, and an analysis window of 74.677 ms. RESULTS:Children with phonological disorders presented higher latency values in all conditions than those with typical development, with statistical significance in the latency of wave V, and lower amplitudes than those with typical development, although without statistical significance. In terms of stimulus presentation, the binaural condition showed significantly larger amplitudes than the monaural conditions, suggesting the presence of a binaural summation effect. CONCLUSION:Children with phonological disorders present alterations in speech encoding, evidenced by delays in FFR responses under both monaural and binaural conditions.
