FM listening evaluation for children: Adaptação para a língua portuguesa

Abstract

Introduction: The inclusion of children with hearing impairments in schools is guaranteed by the Brazilian government by means of official legislation. The FM system is an assistive technology instrument to which regular teachers should have access. Objective: To translate and adapt to Portuguese the FM Listening Evaluation questionnaire for children and assess its reliability. Methods: The translation and adaptation to the FM Listening Evaluation included translation into Portuguese, linguistic adaptation and revision of the grammatical and idiomatic equivalences and adaptation; inter-researcher reproducibility was also evaluated. The questionnaire was administered to the teachers and speech-language pathologists of 12 children aged seven to thirteen years with hearing impairment; the children used hearing aids and had been adapted to the FM system. Results: The translation and adaptation of the questionnaire resulted in new inventory: FM EVALUATION SYSTEM, presenting a significant difference between the results of noise and: hearing pathways and silence; - distance and: hearing pathways and silence; -hearing pathways and: noise, distance and silence; - silence and: noise, distance and hearing pathways. There was significant difference with and without the FM system, in which the score was always higher. Intra-examiner comparison revealed a significant difference between the total score with FM, via FM and hearing no noise with FM. Conclusion: The questionnaire Rating System FM was considered a reliable instrument for verifying and monitoring the benefits of FM system, in order to promote the process of educational inclusion for students with hearing impairments.