Deaf Subjects Research Articles

Dermatoglyphic palmar pattern variations in congenitally deaf and mute subjects

Background: Dermatoglyphics have the unique merit of retaining all their peculiarities unchanged throughout life, and afford in consequence an incomparably surer criterion of identity than any other bodily feature. The rationale for studying dermatoglyphic features is derived from the fact that development of dermal ridges and congenital deafness seems to develop at around the same time. Methods: The material for the study consisted of palm prints of congenitally deaf and mute children of 100 subjects with congenital deafness and muteness between 5-21 years of age and 50 control of similar age group with normal hearing and speech were chosen. The principal patterns of thenar/ I interdigital, interdigital II, interdigital III, interdigital IV and hypothenar area were noted. Position of axial triradius, ‘atd’ angle, pattern of palmar Flexion Creases, presence as well as pattern of the Simian Line and the Sydney Line were recorded. Results: The percentage of open field was maximum in subjects in thenar / interdigital area I. and in interdigital area IV. The mean a-b, c-d and atd angle ridge palmar ridge count was less in subjects in comparison to controls. Highly statistically significant results were obtained between subjects and control for the simian crease pattern when both hands were considered together in which the percentage of transitional type was more than the typical simian crease in subjects. Conclusion: When combined with other clinical and investigative features, dermatoglyphic study can serve as a diagnostic impression and can be advocated as a useful screening device.

An audibility model of the headband trial with a bone conduction device in single-sided deaf subjects

Objective Modelling the head-shadow effect compensation and speech recognition outcomes, we aimed to study the benefits of a bone conduction device (BCD) during the headband trial for single-sided deafened (SSD) subjects. Design This study is based on a database of individual patient measurements, fitting parameters, and acoustic BCD properties retrospectively measured on a skull simulator or from existing literature. The sensation levels of the Bone-Conduction and Air-Conduction sound paths were compared, modelling three spatial conditions with speech in quiet. We calculated the phoneme score using the Speech Intelligibility Index for the three conditions in quiet and seven in noise. Study sample Eighty-five SSD adults fitted with BCD during headband trial. Results According to our model, most subjects did not achieve a full head-shadow effect compensation with the signal at the BCD side and in front. The modelled speech recognition in the quiet conditions did not improve with the BCD on the headband. In noise, we found a slight improvement in some specific conditions and minimal worsening in others. Conclusions Based on an audibility model, this study challenges the fundamentals of a BCD headband trial in SSD subjects. Patients should be counselled regarding the potential outcome and alternative approaches.

Combining Intraoperative Electrocochleography with Robotics-Assisted Electrode Array Insertion.

To describe the use of robotics-assisted electrode array (EA) insertion combined with intraoperative electrocochleography (ECochG) in hearing preservation cochlear implant surgery. Prospective, single-arm, open-label study. All procedures and data collection were performed at a single tertiary referral center. Twenty-one postlingually deaf adult subjects meeting Food and Drug Administration indication criteria for cochlear implantation with residual acoustic hearing defined as thresholds no worse than 65 dB at 125, 250, and 500 Hz. All patients underwent standard-of-care unilateral cochlear implant surgery using a single-use robotics-assisted EA insertion device and concurrent intraoperative ECochG. Postoperative pure-tone average over 125, 250, and 500 Hz measured at initial activation and subsequent intervals up to 1 year afterward. Twenty-two EAs were implanted with a single-use robotics-assisted insertion device and simultaneous intraoperative ECochG. Fine control over robotic insertion kinetics could be applied in response to changes in ECochG signal. Patients had stable pure-tone averages after activation with normal impedance and neural telemetry responses. Combining robotics-assisted EA insertion with intraoperative ECochG is a feasible technique when performing hearing preservation implant surgery. This combined approach may provide the surgeon a means to overcome the limitations of manual insertion and respond to cochlear feedback in real-time.

Variations in fingertip dermatoglyphic pattern in congenitally deaf and mute subjects

Background: Dermatoglyphics, the scientific study of the origin, development and variation on dermal ridges and patterns on the fingers, palms and soles have been employed to observe association with many congenital defects and genetic diseases. Development of dermal ridges and congenital deafness seems to be interlinked as they develop at about the same time. Methods: The material for the study consisted of finger and palm prints of congenitally deaf and mute children of 100 subjects with congenital deafness and muteness between 5-21 years of age and 50 control of similar age group with normal hearing and speech were chosen. Digital patterns, triradii, total ridge count were noted. Results: Overall fingertip pattern of subjects and control when right and left hands were considered together showed significant results in which there was maximum percentage of ulnar loops followed by whorls, carpal arches, composites and least were the tented arches in the subjects. Mean ridge count of all the digits comes out to be less in subjects in comparison to control but it was not statistically significant. Conclusion: Dermatoglyphics can serve as a simple, inexpensive screening tool but further preliminary investigations are needed to come to a conclusive finding.

Theory of mind deficits in language delayed deaf subjects?

Recent studies claim to show that language delayed deaf subjects typically display longlingering deficits in Theory of Mind (ToM) development, despite suffering no known deficits in other cognitive domains. These claims are supported by experimental evidence indicating that such subjects fare poorly on False Belief (FB) tasks. This paper turns a critical eye on these claims. In particular, I argue that the reported results raise important questions about the status of FB tasks as evidence, and about how such evidence should be weighted against naturalistic observations of subjects engaged in everyday activities requiring complex social coordination. I conclude that these studies give us no decisive reason to believe that language delayed deaf subjects suffer distinctively and symptomatically in the domain of social cognition. To the contrary, the attribution of significant socio-cognitive impairment is potentially stigmatizing and may not help us understand the unique challenges these subjects face or suggest remedial strategies to aid them in overcoming these challenges.

Viability analysis of insertion of pounds in the early years and its insertion in Enem

This article seeks to analyze the viability of including Libras in the context of teaching in the early years (basic and fundamental education) and its inclusion in the ENEM test. Considered, since 2002, as the second official language of Brazil through Law No. 10,436, of April 24, 2002, by adopting the Brazilian Sign Language as a means of communication and expression - Libras, considered a visual-motor language, with a structure own grammar. In the general objective, it analyzes the feasibility of including the teaching of the discipline, in the early years of education, as well as the inclusion of questions in the ENEM test. The methodological assumptions are of a qualitative approach through bibliographical research. Thus, it is concluded that education has a fundamental role in the formation of the individual for the construction of knowledge. So, it is in this process that social inclusion should be considered that the insertion of sign language and in ENEM, as a duty of all and governmental spheres, in order to guarantee the necessary support to meet the demands of society. Therefore, language is an instrument for the deaf subject to have his guarantee of his full social and educational development.

Visually evoked potentials (VEPs) across the visual field in hearing and deaf cats.

Congenitally deaf cats perform better on visual localization tasks than hearing cats, and this advantage has been attributed to the posterior auditory field. Successful visual localization requires both visual processing of the target and timely generation of an action to approach the target. Activation of auditory cortex in deaf subjects during visual localization in the peripheral visual field can occur either via bottom-up stimulus-driven and/or top-down goal-directed pathways. In this study, we recorded visually evoked potentials (VEPs) in response to a reversing checkerboard stimulus presented in the hemifield contralateral to the recorded hemisphere in both hearing and deaf cats under light anesthesia. Although VEP amplitudes and latencies were systematically modulated by stimulus eccentricity, we found little evidence of changes in VEP in deaf cats that can explain their behavioral advantage. A statistical trend was observed, showing larger peak amplitudes and shorter peak latencies in deaf subjects for stimuli in the near- and mid-peripheral field. Additionally, latency of the P1 wave component had a larger inter-sweep variation in deaf subjects. Our results suggested that cross-modal plasticity following deafness does not play a major part in cortical processing of the peripheral visual field when the "vision for action" system is not recruited.

Quantitative Understanding of Deaf Children Written Form of Communication through the Use of Word Types

Deaf children, due to the impossibility of transforming the internal speech scheme into expressive speech in mutual written communication, make maximum use of abbreviated speech schemes that determine the ability to communicate. The aim of the study is to examine the content comprehensibility and semantic level of written communication of deaf children through the number of used types oaf words in written communication, and to determine the existence of statistical significaance of differences between deaf and hearing respondents in the use of word types at the level of statistical significance p=0.001. The study was conducted on a sample of 140 respondents. The first subsample of respondents, the experimental group consisted of 70 deaf students, and the second subsample, a control group of 70 hearing students, of the same chronological age and gender. The measurement instrument “Test of understanding the written form of expression” was applied. The frequencies and percentages of responses to each of the variables used were calculated. The t-test and the F (Fisher) test were used to determine the statistical significance of the differences between deaf and hearing subjects. The results of the study showed that deaf students do not have contextual understanding and recognition of word types through testing of linguistic competence in relation to the hearing population, because 67.10% do not understand, and 10.00% of deaf students partially understand the contextual application of word types in writing textual task. Deaf students in the written form of communication use nouns (65.70%), pronouns (34.30%), verbs (45.7%), adjectives (28.60%), adverbs (22.90), prepositions (54.30%), exclamations (15.70%), particles (12.90%) and numbers (32.90%). There is a statistically significant difference between hearing and deaf respondents, in favor of hearing, in all applied types of words, except the use of verbs.

The importance of the environment in everyday school life

It is relevant that the study presented presents an analysis of the main methodologies used in the education of students that emerged in Elementary School, having as a model the theme, The Environment in School Daily Life and its Active Methodologies. The study aims to evaluate the results by the capacity of the students acquired Environment in the Daily School Life of these deaf students, through active methodologies. The student is encouraged to take an active and responsible stance in their learning process, seeking self-regulation and meaningful learning. Learning methods and techniques that stimulate student-teacher and student-student interaction, teaching materials and resources and handouts, almost always, in collaborative learning, taking the student to be responsible for the construction of their knowledge. Based on this premise, we will present a qualitative research and significant results. Expand our information through field research by observation studies and studies, expanding experiences with students emerging from a state school in Manaus. Therefore, we will present some methodologies, among which are Recycle, Reuse and Reduce solid waste. It was found that the methodologies used are oriented according to child-centered learning theories. In this investment in the deaf and their registration, student, context, thus, the service to useful services for stimulation and development is essential. Based on the evaluation of the results by the applicability of the environment themes obtained in the school routine, and the uses of active methodologies, to propose a new method of study to train deaf students. We will seek the best way to work as methodologies in the training of the deaf subject. It was verified the use of the methodologies that motivate the use of the methodologies that motivate the use of their disks and the direction of solutions to make an impasse and promote their development, which is an adequate and necessary instrument for a new learning. It is concluded that the teaching and learning process with deaf students still lacks research opportunities aimed at the adoption of new techniques that favor learning at better levels of qualification for the child.

Acesso e permanência do aluno surdo no ensino superior

This research aims to analyse deaf students’ access to higher education. It is a qualitative research, and it was developed from a literature review of theses and dissertations held in the Improvement of Higher Education Personnel (CAPES) Theses and Dissertations Repository, between the years of 2017 and 2020. The following keywords were used to identify the topic: access, higher education, deaf. Five dissertations and two theses were selected, and their emphasis on the admission and permanence of the deaf subject at university was invoked as a selection criterion. The results show that there is a long way to go until a deaf applicant enters the university and stays there so that they enjoy the benefits granted by legal order, since this student needs strategies deployed at universities entrance examinations – such as an exam in Brazilian sign language – and sign language interpreters to mediate communication during the entire process of education. This will provide accessibility in an inclusive system grounded in pedagogic practices suitable for bilingual education.

The Acoustic Change Complex Compared to Hearing Performance in Unilaterally and Bilaterally Deaf Cochlear Implant Users.

Objectives:Clinical measures evaluating hearing performance in cochlear implant (CI) users depend on attention and linguistic skills, which limits the evaluation of auditory perception in some patients. The acoustic change complex (ACC), a cortical auditory evoked potential to a sound change, might yield useful objective measures to assess hearing performance and could provide insight in cortical auditory processing. The aim of this study is to examine the ACC in response to frequency changes as an objective measure for hearing performance in CI users.Design:Thirteen bilaterally deaf and six single-sided deaf subjects were included, all having used a unilateral CI for at least 1 year. Speech perception was tested with a consonant-vowel-consonant test (+10 dB signal-to-noise ratio) and a digits-in-noise test. Frequency discrimination thresholds were measured at two reference frequencies, using a 3-interval, 2-alternative forced-choice, adaptive staircase procedure. The two reference frequencies were selected using each participant’s frequency allocation table and were centered in the frequency band of an electrode that included 500 or 2000 Hz, corresponding to the apical electrode or the middle electrode, respectively. The ACC was evoked with pure tones of the same two reference frequencies with varying frequency increases: within the frequency band of the middle or the apical electrode (+0.25 electrode step), and steps to the center frequency of the first (+1), second (+2), and third (+3) adjacent electrodes.Results:Reproducible ACCs were recorded in 17 out of 19 subjects. Most successful recordings were obtained with the largest frequency change (+3 electrode step). Larger frequency changes resulted in shorter N1 latencies and larger N1-P2 amplitudes. In both unilaterally and bilaterally deaf subjects, the N1 latency and N1-P2 amplitude of the CI ears correlated to speech perception as well as frequency discrimination, that is, short latencies and large amplitudes were indicative of better speech perception and better frequency discrimination. No significant differences in ACC latencies or amplitudes were found between the CI ears of the unilaterally and bilaterally deaf subjects, but the CI ears of the unilaterally deaf subjects showed substantially longer latencies and smaller amplitudes than their contralateral normal-hearing ears.Conclusions:The ACC latency and amplitude evoked by tone frequency changes correlate well to frequency discrimination and speech perception capabilities of CI users. For patients unable to reliably perform behavioral tasks, the ACC could be of added value in assessing hearing performance.

READING, WRITING AND COMPREHENSION IN DEAF CHILDREN OF THE ADVERBIAL CLAUSE OF PLACE IN WRITTEN FORM

Writing is an integral part of linguistic education of deaf persons which, due to the lack of auditorysensors, has an insurmountable difficulty achieving, so this shortcoming is directly reflected in the general literacyof deaf children. Many detailed studies in the world suggest that in order to become literate, a deaf child must learnthe language of the community. Je/she must first learn the letters and learn to write. About 50% of young deafpeople after high school read and write worse than a ten-year-old hearing child. The aim of this research is toexamine the usage, reading, writing, and comprehension in deaf children of the adverbial clause of place in writtenform and to determine the statistical significance of differences between deaf and hearing children. The study wasconducted on a sample of 140 respondents. The first subsample of subjects, the experimental group consisted of 70deaf students, and the second subsample, a control group of 70 hearing students, of the same chronological age. Themeasurement instrument “Test of writing, and comprehension of an adverbial clause of place” was applied. Thefrequencies and percentages of respondents' responses to the variables were calculated. The F (Fisher) test was usedto determine the statistical significance of the differences between deaf and hearing subjects. The results showed that1.40 % of deaf children are completely successful in reading and writing priloske odredbe, and thaat 90 % of deafchildren use prislocke odredbe partially successfully. The percentage of children that do not use priloske odredbe inany form in their written communication is 8.60%. The order of use of adverbial clause of place by frequency is asfollows: "in", "on", "below", "behind", "next to", and "between". The largest number of deaf children use theadverbial clause of place "in" in their written expression, 65.70% of them. Then, the adverbial clause of place "on"51.14%, the adverbial clause of place "below" 47.14%, the adverbial clause of place "behind" 31.43%, the adverbialclause of place "beside" 30%, and the adverbial clause of place "between" 22.85%.There is a statistically significant difference between deaf and hearing children in the use of the adverbial clause ofplace at the level of statistical significance of p=0.000.

Cochlear Implant Evolving Indications: Our Outcomes in Adult Patients.

Background: The eligibility criteria for cochlear implantation are constantly evolving, following the continuous progress in technology, knowledge about cochlear implant (CI) fitting, and the possibility to preserve residual hearing. Appropriate attention should be given to asymmetric hearing loss (AHL) and single-side deafness (SSD) subjects. This study aimed to analyze cochlear implant indications and evaluate the longitudinal performance outcomes for patients with different kinds and degrees of sensorineural hearing loss. Methods: A total of 69 adult hearing loss CI recipients were included and divided into four subgroups according to our CI indication criteria. We performed objective and subjective measures, including speech perception analysis in silence and with background noise, comparing the outcomes obtained in the four groups. Results: After cochlear implant surgery, concerning the preimplantation daily listening condition, a significantly improved speech perception score in silence and noise was found in all four groups (p < 0.05 for all). Conclusion: CI could represent an efficient solution for patients with AHL and SSD classes.

The deaf subject and the teaching methodologies used throughout history

This article was developed through a bibliographic survey of scholars who dedicated themselves to researching the deaf subject, the main teaching approaches present in educational institutions for these subjects. The main bibliographic sources consulted were: Capoviila (2000), Goldfeld (1997), Perlin &amp;Estrobel (2014), Quadros (2006), among others. The guiding question of this article is; “which teaching approach aimed at deaf students enables a pedagogical action that values their culture?” it is concluded that the measures adopted after the II congress had a great impact on the education of the deaf. Because with the implementation of Oralism as a method, prohibiting the use of sign language resulted in the educational delay of these subjects, since oralization and lip reading were an almost impossible task, developed only by a deaf minority. Therefore, in order to favor the education of the deaf in the bilingual approach, a complete change in the school is necessary. Going through teacher training in order to meet the linguistic particularities of the deaf student.

Writing composition ability and spelling competence in deaf subjects: a psycholinguistic analysis of source of difficulties

We studied the compositional written skills and spelling competence of individuals with a severe hearing impairment, examining qualitative and quantitative characteristics of their texts, the psycholinguistic variables modulating their productions, and writing errors following a fine-grained analysis. Sixteen deaf young adults, educated in bilingual settings, were examined and compared to a group of control hearing subjects matched for gender, age, and education. Writing skills were examined through both written composition and written picture-naming tasks. Concerning compositional skills, deaf participants produced shorter and less informative texts, with fewer adjectives and subordinates, and were qualitatively worse with respect to texts produced by hearing controls. Words produced by deaf participants were those acquired earlier and facilitated by a higher lexical neighbourhood. Errors were mainly semantic, morphological, and syntactic errors, reflecting general linguistic weakness. Spelling errors were few, with phonologically nonplausible misspellings relative to controls, and with phonologically plausible ones being quite rare. In the picture-naming task, deaf people had a greater number of all types of errors with respect to their text, including semantic and morphological errors. Their spelling performance featured mainly phonologically nonplausible misspellings, while phonologically plausible ones were relatively few and comparable to controls. Overall, the writing of deaf adults reveal limitations in grammar and lexical-sematic linguistic competence. This was associated with spelling deficits characterized mainly by the poorer use of phonological sublexical spelling procedures. However, in an ecologic context, their spelling deficits appear not so important as has been claimed in the literature.

Effect of cochlear implant side on early speech processing in adults with single-sided deafness

ObjectiveIn binaurally deaf subjects, speech processing particularly benefits from a cochlear implant (CI) in the right ear, which is contralateral to the commonly left speech-dominant hemisphere. However, it is unclear whether such effects of implantation side also occur in speech processing in patients with single-sided deafness (SSD). MethodsLateralization of N1 responses was analyzed with a high-density electroencephalogram (EEG) in fourteen adults with postlingually acquired left or right SSD who received a CI in adulthood. During recording, patients performed a speech and a pure-tone discrimination task. Lateralization of N1 responses was assessed by side-specific global field power (GFP) and compared (a) between normal hearing and CI-implanted ears within subjects and (b) between implantation sides across subjects. ResultsN1 responses were stronger in the contralateral than in the ipsilateral hemisphere during stimulation of the normal hearing ear (except for left speech stimulation), and was bilateral symmetric with CI stimulation on either side. A significant correlation between speech discrimination performance and left lateralization was found across subjects for the left CI ear. ConclusionsCI stimulation altered auditory processing across hemispheres. Speech discrimination in left CI-implanted SSD patients improved with left lateralization of the N1 response. SignificanceSide-specific rehabilitation in SSD patients might improve speech processing across hemispheres.

Investigating of Deaf Emotion Cognition Pattern By EEG and Facial Expression Combination.

With the development of sensor technology and learning algorithms, multimodal emotion recognition has attracted widespread attention. Many existing studies on emotion recognition mainly focused on normal people. Besides, due to hearing loss, deaf people cannot express emotions by words, which may have a greater need for emotion recognition. In this paper, the deep belief network (DBN) was utilized to classify three category emotions through the electroencephalograph (EEG) and facial expressions. Signals from 15 deaf subjects were recorded when they watched the emotional movie clips. Our system uses a 1-s window without overlap to segment the EEG signals in five frequency bands, then the differential entropy (DE) feature is extracted. The DE feature of EEG and facial expression images plays as multimodal input for subject-dependent emotion recognition. To avoid feature redundancy, the top 12 major EEG electrode channels (FP2, FP1, FT7, FPZ, F7, T8, F8, CB2, CB1, FT8, T7, TP8) in the gamma band and 30 facial expression features (the areas around the eyes and eyebrow) which are selected by the largest weight values. The results show that the classification accuracy is 99.92% by feature selection in deaf emotion reignition. Moreover, investigations on brain activities reveal deaf brain activity changes mainly in the beta and gamma bands, and the brain regions that are affected by emotions are mainly distributed in the prefrontal and outer temporal lobes.

Workplace Stressors of Deaf and Hearing Workers

The occurrence of stress in the workplace is frequent and present in all areas of work. Population deaf workers are at some risk when it comes to the impact of stress in the workplace. The research aims is to determine factors that directly cause stress in the working environment deaf and hearing workers. The sample consisted of 30 deaf workers and 33 hearing workers. For the needs of the research, the measuring instrument of the International labor organizations was used (2003). Research results show that isolated stressors factors are more common in a subsample of deaf subjects. Fear of losing a job, fatigue and short deadlines, lack of support from colleagues and managers, constant change of obligations, feeling insecurities, fear of position in the firm, and communication difficulties are isolated causes of stress in deaf workers. Workflow errors are associated with a feeling of fear and insecurity, they appear due to their insufficient information due to communication difficulties.

Surdez, linguagem e psicanálise:

By establishing a connection between deafness, language and psychoanalysis, the article makes it possible to expand and raise possibilities for the development of new knowledge in relation to the process of construction of the subject, which allows us to reflect on who is the unique subject, engendered by language, which is constituted and constituent of his non-transferable and personal experiences since his birth. The signaled deaf subject (who only communicates through sign language), even with significant achievements in terms of legislation, still continues to have difficulties with regard to the learning process in the school environment, which qualitatively implies their social inclusion. It is noteworthy that psychoanalysis is concerned with studying and investigating the unconscious and the functioning of the psychic apparatus, whose socio-educational subject is constructed by language. This bibliographic research is methodologically configured in a qualitative descriptive study, whose analyzes allowed to infer that language is not vocalization. That such knowledge becomes relevant when it is intended to transform the socio-educational field into an inclusive and meaningful space for the construction of the deaf subject.

The role of oxidative stress in the susceptibility of noise-impaired cochleae to synaptic loss induced by intracochlear electrical stimulation

Intracochlear electrical stimulation (ES) generated by cochlear implants (CIs) is used to activate auditory nerves to restore hearing perception in deaf subjects and those with residual hearing who use electroacoustic stimulation (EAS) technology. Approximately 1/3 of EAS recipients experience loss of residual hearing a few months after ES activation, but the underlying mechanism is unknown. Clinical evidence indicates that the loss is related to the previous history of noise-induced hearing loss (NIHL). In this report, we investigated the impact of intracochlear ES on oxidative stress levels and synaptic counts in inner hair cells (IHCs) of the apical, middle and basal regions of guinea pigs with normal hearing (NH) and NIHL. Our results demonstrated that intracochlear ES with an intensity of 6 dB above the thresholds of electrically evoked compound action potentials (ECAPs) could induce the elevation of oxidative stress levels, resulting in a loss of IHC synapses near the electrodes in the basal and middle regions of the NH cochleae. Furthermore, the apical region of cochleae with NIHL were more susceptible to synaptic loss induced by relatively low-intensity ES than that of NH cochleae, resulting from the additional elevation of oxidative stress levels and the reduced antioxidant capability throughout the whole cochlea.