The purpose of this study was to perform the cultural adaptation of the Brazilian version of the Vocal Fatigue Index (VFI). Two Brazilian bilingual speech-language pathologists (SLP) translated the original version of the VFI in English into Portuguese. The translations were reviewed by a committee of five voice specialist SLPs resulting in the final version of the instrument. A third bilingual SLP back-translated this final version and the same committee reviewed the differences from its original version. The final Portuguese version of the VFI, as in the original English version, was answered on a categorical scale of 0-4 indicating the frequency they experience the symptoms: 0=never, 1=almost never, 2=sometimes, 3=almost always, and 4=always. For cultural equivalence of the Portuguese version, the option "not applicable" was added to the categorical scale and 20 individuals with vocal complaints and dysphonia completed the index. Questions considered "not applicable" would be disregarded from the Brazilian version of the protocol; no question had to be removed from the instrument. The Brazilian Portuguese version was entitled "Índice de Fadiga Vocal - IFV" and features 19 questions, equivalent to the original instrument. Of the 19 items, 11 were related with tiredness of voice and voice avoidance, five concerned physical discomfort associated with voicing, and three were related to improvement of symptoms with rest or lack thereof. The Brazilian version of the VFI presents cultural and linguistic equivalence to the original instrument. The IFV validation into Brazilian Portuguese is in progress.

In summary, although multiple oppositions is a variation of the minimal pair approach, it is specifically designed to treat phoneme collapses, not variability. Treatment procedures provide systematic modeling of larger contrastive sets, not simply a series of minimal pairs.

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Auditory and visual tests with matched word-level and sentence-level materials were compared in order to tease apart the effects of modality and linguistic factors on recall scores. Participants were 32 young adults (27 female, 5 male) in good or excellent health, who were native English speakers (mean age = 19.9 years, SD = 1.8, range 18-26) and had at least some post-secondary education. The complex auditory and visual stimuli were sentences taken from the Revised Speech Perception in Noise (RSPIN) Test materials. Participants completed each of the four tests (2 modalities x 2 linguistic levels): simple (word-level materials) auditory, complex (sentence-level materials) auditory, simple reading, complex reading. Using the total scores, recall was better for word- than for sentence-level materials by 8.9% and recall was better for auditory than for visual materials by 10.8%. There was a significant correlation between modalities for the sentence-level conditions, and a stronger correlation for word-level materials.

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Otoacoustic emissions (OAEs) were recorded for tone bursts presented separately and as a two-tone burst complex. Signals were delivered at 70 dB SPL using a non-linear processing method and at 60 dB SPL using a linear method. Two types of stimuli were applied to record tone burst OAEs (TBOAEs): (a) cosine-windowed tone bursts of 5-ms duration with center frequencies of 1, 1.5, 2 and 3 kHz, (b) complex stimuli consisting of a digital addition of the 1-kHz tone burst together with either the 1.5-, 2- or 3-kHz tone burst. Recorded signals were processed using the method of adaptive approximations by matching pursuit (MP). The MP method allowed decomposition of signals into waveforms of defined frequency, latency, time span, and amplitude. This approach provided a high time-frequency (t-f) resolution and identified patterns of resonance modes that were characteristic for TBOAEs recorded in each ear. The effect of suppression was statistically significant only for the 1, 1.5-kHz condition and slightly greater for the non-linear mode than for the linear mode. For the dual stimulation by 1 and 1.5-kHz, the MP revealed the existence of closely positioned resonance modes associated with responses recorded individually with the stimuli differing in frequency by 500 Hz. The comparison of t-f distributions calculated for dual (two-tone bursts) and sum-of-singles conditions exhibited mutual suppression of resonance modes common to both stimuli.

Objective: The objective of the study was to determine whether short-term experience (i.e., 4 weeks) with a smartphone-based hearing aid application (SHAA) might positively improve attitudes toward amplification uptake and hearing impairment. Method: We recruited 15 experienced hearing aid wearers who had ceased wearing their devices for > 1 year (i.e., “In-the-Drawer” group) and 15 individuals with self-reported hearing difficulties who had yet to adopt hearing aids (i.e., “First-Time” group). We obtained participant attitudes preand post-SHAA using 3 surveys and analyzed perceptible changes in attitude for each survey. Comparative findings were then generalized to the health belief model in the context of perceived benefits (i.e., efficacy of an action to reduce risk) and reduced perceived barriers (i.e., tangible and psychological costs that inhibit compliance and adoption). Results: A short trial period with an SHAA appears to modify the psychological perception toward amplification and reduce listener perception with respect to hearing difficulties in both groups. Conclusion: A short trial period with an SHAA improved the perceived benefits and reduced the perceived barriers in the average First-Time listener, who often delays adoption of traditional amplification. The same trial period was also found to improve perceived benefits and reduce perceived barriers for the average In-the-Drawer listener, but to a lesser degree than their First-Time counterparts.