Laryngeal and Voice Disorders in Patients with Pulmonary Tuberculosis.

INTRODUCTION: Laryngeal tuberculosis (LTB) is the most frequent granulomatous disease of the larynx. The aim of the present work was to study the laryngostroboscopic features and voice quality of patients with laryngeal TB secondary to pulmonary TB. MATERIALS AND METHODS: Participants were 35 patients diagnosed as having pulmonary TB and dysphonia. All patients had a complete history, clinical and laboratory workup. Patients were assessed using a protocol of voice assessment which included Auditory-perceptual analysis of voice, voice analysis using the Multidimensional Voice Profile (MDVP), and laryngostroboscopy. RESULTS: The participants were 24 males and 11 females and their mean age was 43.7 years. The voice acoustic analysis revealed a significant difference from normal in jitter percent, shimmer percent, and harmonic to noise (H/N) ratio. Laryngeal gross lesions were found in 11 patients while the other 24 patients had normal laryngoscopic findings with nonspecific stroboscopic changes as reduced mucosal waves and mild glottic gap. Diffuse lesion of the whole vocal folds was found in 5 patients and anterior predilection in 4 patients. The type of lesions were granulomatous lesions in 7 patients and non-specific inflammatory mild exophytic lesions in 4 patients. CONCLUSIONS: Voice disorders in pulmonary TB include disturbance in the mechanism of voice production with or without detectable laryngeal lesion. Videostroboscopy has the advantage of showing the extension of laryngeal involvement, vocal folds vibrations, and mucosal waves.

Studying some elicited verbal prosodic patterns in Egyptian specific language impaired children.

BACKGROUND: Prosody is the aspect of language that conveys emotion by changes in tone, rhythm, and emphasis during speech and the term specific language impairment (SLI) refers to children whose language development is substantially below their chronological age, despite a normal nonverbal intelligence and no obvious neurological or physiological impairments, or emotional and/or social difficulties that could impact language use. PURPOSE: To assess prosodic skills in Arabic speaking children with specific language impairment, in order to answer the question "Are SLI children dysprosodic?" And to be put in consideration while choosing and applying the training procedure hence, qualifies the rehabilitation program. METHODS: Thirty Egyptian normal children and 30 Egyptian children with specific language impairment (SLI) aged between 4 and 6 years were included in this study and were subjected to psychometric evaluation, audio logical assessment, Arabic language test, articulation test, and assessment protocol of prosody. RESULTS: Egyptian specific language impaired children have lower prosodic skills scores than control group with positive significant correlation between total language ages of specific language impaired children and total prosodic scores. CONCLUSION: Egyptian specific language impaired children have dysprosodic skills and the intervention program must include prosodic rehabilitation program in order to achieve higher improvement level.

Otitis media: is precursor of delayed reading in Arabic speaking children?

OBJECTIVE: To investigate the relation between otitis media in the language acquisition years and the occurrence of delayed reading between the ages of 7 and 10. METHOD: Participants were 40 children, half of whom had a history of otitis media between the ages of birth and three years and half who were free of the disease. These children, now ages 7-10, were tested with the Stanford Beint and Arabic Dyslexia Assessment Test. RESULTS: Children with a history of otitis media scored over a year below grade level in reading and significantly below controls on Arabic Dyslexia Assessment tests as well as on the Verbal IQ factor on the Stanford Binet. CONCLUSIONS: Children with early onset otitis media (birth to three years) tend to be at greater risk for delayed reading than age-matched controls.