A European Perspective on Auditory Processing Disorder-Current Knowledge and Future Research Focus.

Current notions of "hearing impairment," as reflected in clinical audiological practice, do not acknowledge the needs of individuals who have normal hearing pure tone sensitivity but who experience auditory processing difficulties in everyday life that are indexed by reduced performance in other more sophisticated audiometric tests such as speech audiometry in noise or complex non-speech sound perception. This disorder, defined as "Auditory Processing Disorder" (APD) or "Central Auditory Processing Disorder" is classified in the current tenth version of the International Classification of diseases as H93.25 and in the forthcoming beta eleventh version. APDs may have detrimental effects on the affected individual, with low esteem, anxiety, and depression, and symptoms may remain into adulthood. These disorders may interfere with learning per se and with communication, social, emotional, and academic-work aspects of life. The objective of the present paper is to define a baseline European APD consensus formulated by experienced clinicians and researchers in this specific field of human auditory science. A secondary aim is to identify issues that future research needs to address in order to further clarify the nature of APD and thus assist in optimum diagnosis and evidence-based management. This European consensus presents the main symptoms, conditions, and specific medical history elements that should lead to auditory processing evaluation. Consensus on definition of the disorder, optimum diagnostic pathway, and appropriate management are highlighted alongside a perspective on future research focus.

Influence of the partial denture on the articulation of dental and postalveolar sounds.

Dental prosthesis is a foreign body in oral cavity and thus necessarily interferes with speech articulation. The purpose of this study was to examine influence of partial denture on speech quality and to show eventual differences in pronunciation of dental sounds c[ts], z [z], s [s] and postalveolar sounds c [t], z [3] and s [integral of]. We have examined differences in pronunciation between subjects with removable partial dentures, the same group without partial dentures and a control group. The study was performed on 30 subjects with removable partial dentures and 30 subjects with complete dental arch. All subjects were recorded while reading six Croatian words containing the examined sounds. Recordings were analyzed with Multispeech Program (Kay Elemetrics Inc.). Acoustic analysis--LPC (linear prediction coding) provided formant peaks (Hz) for each examined sound, its intensity (dB) and formant bandwidths (Hz). Results showed that subjects with partial dentures had 50% less distorted variables and that prostheses did not completely restore articulation of postalveolar sounds. Groups with and without prostheses had lower formant peaks intensities and wider formant bandwidths in comparison to the control group. Partial dentures have not significantly interfered with resonance frequency. At the same time, pronunciation of the examined sounds was significantly improved. However, precision of the articulation movements has deteriorated.

Speech and voice analysis after near-total laryngectomy and tracheoesophageal puncture with implantation of Provox 2 prosthesis.

Vocal characteristics were compared in two groups of patients who were operated on due to laryngeal cancer. One group was composed of patients after near-total laryngectomy and the other after total laryngectomy followed by tracheoesophageal puncture with implantation of Provox 2 prosthesis. Acoustic analysis was carried out using the EZ Voice Plus program and included the following parameters: fundamental frequency, jitter, shimmer, harmonic to noise ratio, range of fundamental frequency, maximal phonation time and intensity.