Occurrence of Auditory Impairments in Individuals With Dysphonia: A Scoping Review

Aim: To investigate the occurrence of auditory impairments in individuals with dysphonia and to describe the results of behavioral and electrophysiological audiological assessments in this population.

Study design: A scoping review.

Method: A scoping review following the guidelines of the Joanna Briggs Institute Manual for Evidence Synthesis for Scoping Reviews and PRISMA-ScR. A search was carried out using the electronic databases PubMed, Scielo, and Lilacs, as well as the gray literature via Google Scholar. Using the Rayyan platform, the selection and extraction of data from the studies was carried out independently and blindly by two reviewers, with excellent agreement. The studies included in the review were subjected to extraction of the following information for analysis: authors, year of publication, objective, sample characteristics, dysphonia classification, audiological assessment procedure, and conclusion.

Results: About 100 studies were found, and 13 eligible studies were included in the analysis. Of the studies included, 92.3% (n = 12) adopted cross-sectional designs, 76.9% (n = 10) investigated auditory functions in individuals with behavioral dysphonia, and 23.1% (n = 3) with organic dysphonia. The samples consisted of children in 53.8% (n = 7) of the studies and adults in 46.2% (n = 6), both with dysphonia. Around 53.80% (n = 7) of the studies included control groups without dysphonia. As for audiological assessment methods, 53.8% (n = 7) used behavioral tests of central auditory processing, 15.4% (n = 2) electrophysiological assessment, and 30.8% (n = 4) a combination of both.

Conclusion-: Individuals with dysphonia, especially of the behavioral type, may have deficits in auditory function. The main impairments refer to central auditory processing, especially in skills involving temporal processing, figure-ground skills, and auditory closure. Electrophysiological assessment does not show any significant differences between individuals with and without behavioral dysphonia. However, the frequency of follow-up response has a potential for greater impairment in this population. In cases of organic dysphonia, small and inconsistent impairments have been found, such as prolonged latencies of auditory potentials.