Introdução: o teste de fala comprimida é sensível para avaliar o fechamento, porém não é usado no Brasil, pois não existe no português. Objetivo: elaborar um teste de fala comprimida em português aplicá-lo em jovens normo-ouvintes e verificar qual das listas comprimidas (50, 60 e 70%) é a mais apropriada para integrar a grupo de testes de Processamento Auditivo. Método: foram avaliados 144 indivíduos jovens, de ambos os sexos. Foram aplicados os testes de fala comprimida, comparando os resultados de acordo com a orelha inicial, ordem de apresentação e tipo de teste. Resultados: a média de acertos diminui com o aumento da compressão. Conclusão: as listas com compressão de 60% mostraram-se mais estáveis. / INTRODUCTION: The compressed speech test is good for evaluate closure, however it is not used in Brazil because it doesn't exist in portuguese. AIM: make a compressed speech test in portuguese, apply it in normal hearing adults and verify which of the compressed lists (50, 60, 70%) is the most appropriate to be a part of the auditory processing test set. METHOD: 144 individuals of both genders were evaluated. The compressed speech tests were used and the results were compared in respect of inicial ear, order of presentation and monosyllable and bisyllable. RESULTS: the average of correct responses decrease as the compression increase. CONCLUSION: the 60% compression test list shows to be the more stable of them.

La prothèse cochléaire est un appareillage destiné à la réhabilitation des surdités profondes et totales dont un appareillage conventionnel est inefficace. Elle assure la stimulation directe des neurones cochléaires à travers un faisceau d’électrodes. Différents travaux de recherches ont été établis afin d'évaluer l'intelligibilité de la parole chez les sujets bilatéralement implantés en environnements silencieux et bruité. Les résultats ont montré une bonne intelligibilité de la parole en milieu silencieux. Toutefois, les capacités de perception de la parole chez les patients implantés se dégradent en environnement bruité. Nous avons de ce fait proposé trois approches de traitement du signal en vue d'une amélioration de l'intelligibilité de la parole dans le cas de l'implant cochléaire bilatéral: la stimulation bilatérale décalée, l'algorithme de la soustraction spectrale bi-voie et l'algorithme de la soustraction interspectrale. Des améliorations de l'intelligibilité de la parole entre 4% et 10% ont été notées dans le cas de la stimulation bilatérale décalée par rapport à la stimulation bilatérale symétrique. L'approche basée sur l'algorithme de la soustraction spectrale bi-voie présentait des améliorations variables entre 10% et 17%. De meilleures performances ont été obtenues lorsque l'approche basée sur l'algorithme de la soustraction interspectrale est considérée où les améliorations étaient entre 15% et 27% / Cochlear prostheses are intended for persons suffering from deep or total deafness where conventional prostheses proved ineffective. In quiet listening conditions, most bilateral cochlear implant (BCI) users can now achieve even more than 80% word recognition scores regardless the used device. However, under more challenging listening conditions, BCI recipients perform poorly, compared to normal-hearing listeners. In this work, we proposed three speech processing approaches for speech intelligibility improvement. The first is based on shifted bilateral cochlear implant stimulation; the second is based on dual-channel spectral subtraction algorithm and finally the cross power spectral subtraction algorithm was considered. Experimental results showed a speech intelligibility improvement between 4% and 10% when the shifted bilateral cochlear implant stimulation is considered. Performance amelioration was observed when the dual-channel spectral subtraction based speech enhancement algorithm was considered and the improvement was between 10% and 17%. The better performance was obtained when noisy speech signals were processed using cross power spectral subtraction algorithm and the improvement was between 15% and 27%

Les droits du patient sont de plus en plus fréquemment évoqués par les institutions de l’Union, ce qui peut surprendre tant ce sujet est éloigné des préoccupations initiales des Communautés. À défaut de compétence juridique spécifique, ce sont à la fois la voie des droits fondamentaux et celle du marché intérieur qui ont été exploitées. L’intérêt pour ce domaine est tel qu’il existe désormais un véritable foisonnement normatif (composé tant de sources déclaratoires qu’obligatoires) affectant l’accessibilité et l’intelligibilité. La réflexion conduit donc à proposer une codification visant à simplifier la lisibilité des droits du patient reconnus par le droit de l’Union. La théorie des droits fondamentaux permet par ailleurs de déterminer si les prérogatives reconnues constituent ou non de véritables droits subjectifs. Cet intérêt pour les droits du patient contribue à l’effectivité de leur protection. Toutefois, en raison de la répartition des compétences entre l’Union et les États membres, apparaît un double niveau d’effectivité : la dimension transfrontalière des soins est particulièrement propice à la réalité des droits consubstantiels à cette situation, tandis que l’effectivité est plus nuancée pour ceux sans lien spécifique avec la mobilité. La réflexion s’est alors orientée vers la question du perfectionnement de l’effectivité, dont les perspectives sont plus ou moins positives selon la nature de l’obligation que les droits font naître pour leurs destinataires. Cette analyse conduit in fine à une réflexion sur l’existence d’un statut juridique du patient en droit de l’Union et à des propositions destinées à renforcer la place du patient et le respect de ses droits / Patients and their rights have been increasingly talked about within EU institutions, which may surprise as this subject is so remote from the Communities’ original focus. In the absence of specific legal competence, both fundamental rights and the internal market have been tapped into by EU institutions. There is so much interest in this field that there now exists a real profusion of norms (consisting of both soft and hard law sources) impacting upon the accessibility and intelligibility. Our analysis eventually offers a codification whose ambition is to make patients’ rights as recognised by EU legislation more readable. Moreover, resorting to the theory of fundamental rights enable us to ascertain whether or not recognised prerogatives constitute real individual rights. The interest in patients’ rights contributes to the effectiveness of their protection all over the EU. However, on account of the distribution of competences between the Union and member states, effectiveness actually operates on two levels : the cross-border dimension of healthcare is particularly favourable to the reality of rights inherent to this situation while effectiveness is not so straightforward for those who have no specific links with mobility. In light of this, research has turned towards the question of improving effectiveness whose prospects are more or less fruitful depending on the nature of the obligation which rights give rise to for those they are aimed at. All in all, this analys entails consideration of the existence of a legal status for patients and proposals intended to further reinforce the place of patients and, therefore, the safeguarding of his rights

Conventional hearing aid circuitry is often unable to provide children with hearing loss with sufficient high frequency information in order to develop adequate oral language skills due to the risk of acoustic feedback and the narrower frequency spectrum of conventional amplification. The purpose of this study was to investigate word recognition abilities of children with moderate-to-severe hearing loss using hearing aids with linear frequency transposition. Seven children with moderate-to-severe sensorineural hearing loss between the ages of 5 years 0 months and 7 years 11 months were selected for the participant group. Word recognition assessments were first performed with the participants using their own previous generation digital signal processing hearing aids. Twenty-five-word lists from the Word Intelligibility by Picture Identification (WIPI) test were presented to the participants in three test conditions, namely: at 55 dB HL in quiet, 55 dB HL with a +5 dB signal-to-noise ratio (SNR) and at 35 dB HL. The participants were then fitted with an ISP-based hearing aid without linear frequency transposition, and the word recognition assessments were repeated with different WIPI word lists under the same conditions as the first assessment. Linear frequency transposition was then activated in the ISP-based hearing aid and different WIPI word lists were presented once more under identical conditions as the previous assessments. A 12-day acclimatization period was allowed between assessments, and all fittings were verified according to the DSL v5 fitting algorithm. Results indicated a significant increase of more than 12% in word recognition score for some of the participants when they used the ISP-based hearing aid with linear frequency transposition. A significant decrease was also seen for some of the participants when they used the ISP-based hearing aid with linear frequency transposition, but all participants presented with better word recognition scores when they used the ISP-based hearing aids without linear frequency transposition compared to their previous generation digital signal processing hearing aids. This study has shown that linear frequency transposition may improve the word recognition skills of some children with moderate-to-severe sensorineural hearing loss, and more research is needed to explore the criteria that can be used to determine candidacy for linear frequency transposition. / Dissertation (MCommunication Pathology)--University of Pretoria, 2010. / Speech-Language Pathology and Audiology / Unrestricted

Introdução: O ruído é um dos principais agentes de poluição ambiental, que em intensidades elevadas, poderá causar a perda auditiva induzida por níveis de pressão sonora elevadas (PAINPSE). A PAINPSE é o segundo tipo de perda auditiva neurossensorial mais frequente, e considerada uma das principais doenças ocupacionais. Para evitar os prejuízos da exposição ao ruído ocupacional, legislações determinam o monitoramento e o desenvolvimento de ações para reduzir os efeitos da exposição, sendo o uso de dispositivos de proteção auditiva (DPA) a mais empregada. Contudo é comum que o trabalhador relate dificuldades para se comunicar com o DPA, o que pode induzi-lo ao uso inadequado. Os estudos já realizados apresentam discordâncias sobre os efeitos do DPA para a inteligibilidade da fala, além de serem poucos os que compararam participantes com perdas auditivas com normo-ouvintes. Objetivos: Avaliar a inteligibilidade de fala em trabalhadores expostos a ruído durante o uso de DPA. Métodos: Trata-se de um estudo transversal, aprovado pelo Comitê de Ética em Pesquisa da instituição nº 130/14, com amostra de 36 participantes, todos do sexo masculino e expostos ao ruído. Foram divididos em grupo normo-ouvintes (G1), com 20 participantes e com perda auditiva (G2), com 16 participantes. Todos os participantes realizaram avaliação da inteligibilidade de fala em campo acústico, utilizando listas de monossílabas e sentenças, em situações de uso do DPA no silêncio e no ruído e sem o uso do DPA no ruído. Resultados: Na avaliação da inteligibilidade de fala com DPA utilizando as monossílabas, ambos os grupos apresentaram porcentagens de acertos superiores à 95% na situação de silêncio. Na presença do ruído com o DPA, não foi detectado efeito de interação envolvendo grupo (p>=0,106) e nem efeito de grupo (p=0,182), mas houve efeito de interação entre intensidade de fala e relação sinal/ruído (S/R) (p=0,006). Na avaliação da inteligibilidade de fala no ruído sem o DPA, foi detectado efeito de interação entre uso do DPA e relação S/R (p=0,010) sobre a média das porcentagens de acertos. Na avaliação com listas de sentenças, a porcentagem de acertos com DPA foram superiores a 98% no silêncio; contudo, no ruído houve piora, com efeito de interação entre intensidade de fala e relação S/R (p=0,010) e entre grupo e relação S/R (p=0,039). Na comparação do uso/não uso do DPA, houve efeito de interação entre uso do DPA e as relações S/R (p=0,009) sobre a média das porcentagens de acertos. Conclusões: Para ambos os grupos, houve piora da inteligibilidade de fala com o aumento da intensidade do ruído; contudo, a dificuldade foi maior para o G2. Na comparação das situações com/sem o uso do DPA, o uso dificultou a inteligibilidade de fala, mas não houve diferença significante entre as situações. Por fim, ressalta-se a importância de realizar mais estudos dos efeitos do DPA na comunicação, além de inserir nas avaliações ocupacionais testes que avaliam a fala no ruído, para determinar as dificuldades que podem surgir no ambiente ocupacional, e assim desenvolver medidas que beneficiem os trabalhadores que necessitam se comunicar durante as atividades laborais / Introduction: Noise is one of the main agents of environmental pollution, and at high intensities, it may provoke noise-induced hearing loss (NIHL). NIHL is the second most frequent type of sensorineural hearing loss and it is considered one of the main occupational diseases. In order to avoid the effects of the exposition to occupational noise, legislation determines the monitoring and development of actions to reduce the effects of such exposure and one of the most applied measure is the mandatory use of hearing protection devices (HPD). However, workers often report difficulties to communicate when using the HPD, what may induce them to use it improperly. Previous studies showed divergences between the effects of HPD on speech intelligibility; besides, few studies compared participants with hearing loss to those with normal hearing. Purpose: To assess speech intelligibility of workers exposed to noise during the use of HPD. Methods: This is a cross-sectional study, approved by the Institution\'s Ethics Committee (nº 130/14) and counted on a sample of 36 participants, all males and exposed to noise. They were distributed into a normal hearing group (G1), with 20 participants and hearing loss group (G2), with 16 participants. All participants were submitted to an assessment of speech intelligibility in free field, using monosyllable and sentence lists, when using the HPD in silence and noise situation, and also without the use of HPD in noise. Results: In the assessment of speech intelligibility with HPD using the monosyllables, both groups presented percentages of correct answers above 95%. In the presence of noise with HPD, there was no interaction effect involving group (p>=0.106) or group effect (p=0.182), but there was found an interaction effect between speech intensity and signal-to-noise ratio (SNR) (p=0.006). In the assessment of speech intelligibility in noise without HPD, an interaction effect between HPD use and SNR (p=0.010) was detected over the mean percentage of correct answers. In the evaluation with lists of sentences, the percentage of correct answers with HPD were superior to 98% in the silence; however, in noise, there was a decrease on the interaction effect between speech intensity and SNR (p = 0.010) and between group and SNR (p = 0.039). In the comparison with/without use of HPD, there was found an interaction effect between hearing protection use and SNR (p = 0.009) on the mean percentage of correct answers. Conclusions: For both groups, it was noticed that speech intelligibility decrease with the increasing of noise intensity; nevertheless, the difficulty was greater for the group with hearing loss. In the comparison of situations with and without the use of HPD, its use made speech intelligibility more challenging, but no significant difference between the situations was found. Finally, it is important to highlight the importance of further studies regarding the effects of HPD on communication and, besides, inserting speech-in-noise tests in occupational examination in order to determine the difficulties that may arise in the occupational environment and thus, develop measures that benefits the workers who need communicate during their labor activities

Background: Ablative surgery of oropharyngeal tumors frequently leads to defects in the speech organs, resulting in impairment of speech up to the point of unintelligibility. The aim of the present study was the assessment of selected parameters of speech with and without resection prostheses. Patients and Methods: The speech sounds of 22 patients suffering from maxillary and mandibular defects were recorded using a digital audio tape (DAT) recorder with and without resection prostheses. Evaluation of the resonance and the production of the sounds /s/, /sch/, and /ch/ was performed by 2 experienced speech therapists. Additionally, the patients completed a non-standardized questionnaire containing a linguistic self-assessment. Results: After prosthesis supply, the number of patients with rhinophonia aperta decreased from 7 to 2 while the number of patients with intelligible speech increased from 2 to 20. Correct production of the sounds /s/, /sch/, and /ch/ increased from 2 to 13 patients. A significant improvement of the evaluated parameters could be observed only in patients with maxillary defects. The linguistic self-assessment showed a higher satisfaction in patients with maxillary defects. Conclusion: In patients with maxillary defects due to ablative tumor surgery, an increase in speech performance and intelligibility is possible by supplying resection prostheses.

Der Begriff Performativität geht zurück auf die Sprechakttheorie und wurde von dem Sprachphilosophen John L. Austin 'ins Spiel' gebracht. Er verweist mit dem Terminus auf die handlungspraktische Dimension des Sprechens, d.h. dasjenige zu vollziehen oder zu produzieren, was im Sprechen benannt wird, und es nicht lediglich zu bezeichnen. Vor dem Hintergrund von Derridas Iterabilitätsbegriff hat insbesondere Judith Butler das Konzept in die Gendertheorie eingeführt. Das Sein oder So-Sein eines Geschlechtes ist demnach kein ontologischer Status, der aus einer vordiskursiven Wirklichkeit schöpft, sondern das Ergebnis (sich wiederholender) performativer Inszenierungen, die sich selbst erfolgreich als Sein darstellen.

A substantial body of research points to the benefits of fitting hearing instruments that provides extended high frequency amplification. Most published research were done on adults or in controlled laboratory settings. It is therefore necessary for peadiatric audiologists to critically assess the effects that this extended high frequency amplification has on the individual child fitted with hearing instruments. A quantitative research method was selected to explore the possible correlations between extended high frequency amplification and the influence this extended high frequency amplification has on speech recognition and functional performance in children with mild to severe sensory neural hearing loss. A quasiexperimental design was selected. This design accommodated a one-group (single-system) pre-test versus post-test design. Baseline assessments were done and all participants were subjected to pre- and post-intervention assessments. Six participants were fitted with hearing instruments which provided extended high frequency amplification. A baseline assessment was done with current hearing instruments after which participants were assessed with the hearing instruments with extended high frequency amplification. Aided audiological assessments were done without the extended high frequencies after which participants were evaluated with the added high frequencies. Speech recognition testing and functional performance questionnaires were used to compare the outcomes obtained with and without the extended high frequency amplification. A t-test was used for hypothesis testing to determine if extended range amplification increased speech recognition abilities and functional performance, and if these increases were statistically significant. Results were varied where some participants performed better and some performed worse with the added extended range amplification during speech recognition testing and functional performances observed at home. These varied results were statistically insignificant. However, statistically significant evidence was obtained to indicate that extended high frequency amplification increased the functional performance observed at school. The study concluded that the paediatric audiologist should know the effect fitting hearing instruments capable of extended high frequency amplification have on speech recognition abilities and functional performances. Fitting hearing instruments with extended high frequency amplification should however be done with caution because not all children benefited from extended bandwidth amplification. This underlines the importance of following a strict evidence-based approach that incorporates objective and subjective assessment approaches. This will provide the paediatric audiologist with real world evidence of the success of the amplification strategy that is followed. / Dissertation (MCommunication Pathology)--University of Pretoria, 2012. / Speech-Language Pathology and Audiology / Unrestricted

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This project discusses the importance of accurate note-taking for D/deaf and hard of hearing students who have accomodation requirements and offers innovative opportunities to improve the student experience in order to encourage more D/deaf and hard of hearing individuals to persue academia. It also includes a linguistic analysis of speech singals that correspond to transcription output errors produced by speech-to-text programs, which can be utilized to advance and improve speech recognition systems. / In hopes to encourage more D/deaf and hard of hearing (DHH) students to pursue academia, speech-to-text has been suggested to address notetaking issues. This research examined several transcripts created by two untrained speech-to-text programs, Ava and Otter, using 11 different speakers in academic contexts. Observations regarding functionality and error analysis are detailed in this thesis. This project has several objectives, including: 1) to outline how the DHH students’ experience differs from other note-taking needs; 2) to use linguistic analysis to understand how transcript accuracy converts to real-world use and to investigate why errors occur; and 3) to describe what needs to be addressed before assigning DHH students with a captioning service. Results from a focus group showed that current notetaking services are problematic, and that automatic captioning may solve some issues, but some errors are detrimental as it is particularly difficult for DHH students to identify and fix errors within transcripts. Transcripts produced by the programs were difficult to read, as outputs lacked accurate utterance breaks and contained poor punctuation. The captioning of scripted speech was more accurate than that of spontaneous speech for native and most non-native English speakers. An analysis of errors showed that some errors are less severe than others; in response, we offer an alternative way to view errors: as insignificant, obvious, or critical errors. Errors are caused by either the program’s inability to identify various items, such as word breaks, abbreviations, and numbers, or a blend of various speaker factors including: assimilation, vowel approximation, epenthesis, phoneme reduction, and overall intelligibility. Both programs worked best with intelligible speech, as measured by human perception. Speech rate trends were surprising: Otter seemed to prefer fast speech from native English speakers and Ava preferred, as expected, slow speech, but results differed between scripted and spontaneous speech. Correlations of accuracy and fundamental frequencies showed conflicting results. Some reasons for errors could not be determined without knowing more about how the systems were programed. / Thesis / Master of Science (MSc) / In hopes to encourage more D/deaf and hard of hearing (DHH) students to pursue academia, automatic captioning has been suggested to address notetaking issues. Captioning programs use speech recognition (SR) technology to caption lectures in real-time and produce a transcript afterwards. This research examined several transcripts created by two untrained speech-to-text programs, Ava and Otter, using 11 different speakers. Observations regarding functionality and error analysis are detailed in this thesis. The project has several objectives: 1) to outline how the DHH students’ experience differs from other note-taking needs; 2) to use linguistic analysis to understand how transcript accuracy converts to real-world use and to investigate why errors occur; and 3) to describe what needs to be addressed before assigning DHH students with a captioning service. Results from a focus group showed that current notetaking services are problematic, and that automatic captioning may solve some issues, but some types of errors are detrimental as it is particularly difficult for DHH students to identify and fix errors within transcripts. Transcripts produced by the programs were difficult to read, as outputs contain poor punctuation and lack breaks between thoughts. Captioning of scripted speech was more accurate than that of spontaneous speech for native and most non-native English speakers; and an analysis of errors showed that some errors are less severe than others. In response, we offer an alternative way to view errors: as insignificant, obvious, or critical errors. Errors are caused by either the program’s inability to identify various items, such as word breaks, abbreviations, and numbers, or a blend of various speaker factors. Both programs worked best with intelligible speech; One seemed to prefer fast speech from native English speakers and the other preferred slow speech; a preference of male or female voices showed conflicting results. Some reasons for errors could not be determined, as one would have to observe how the systems were programed.