The voice of the hearing impaired: a literature review

Abstract

Introduction Hearing loss can affect aspects related to voice, due to changes in vocal control caused by reduced or absent auditory feedback. Objective: To present a review on the voice of the hearing impaired over the last 12 years. Methods The literature was conducted on articles available at the Lilacs, Scielo and Pubmed / Medline databases with the following keywords: voice, hearing impairment, voice quality, deafness, hearing aids and cochlear implants, and words in the English language during the period from 2003 to 2015. Results the terms used in the study were crosswise and present in 829 articles. From this total, 157 articles were relevant to the study. By the inclusion and exclusion criteria, 26 articles were selected. From the ones selected for this review, 13 address the cochlear implant issue; seven deal with the use of cochlear implant and the hearing aid (HA) in the same study; four refer exclusively to the topic and two showed data on hearing impaired participants without electronic device. Conclusion The results show the prevalence of studies associated with the vocal quality of cochlear implant users, emphasizing different aspects, such as onset of hearing loss, the time of sensory deprivation and rehabilitation approach, among others, as important factors for the development of acoustic feedback necessary for monitoring voice. They also emphasize the good results obtained by cochlear implant users, in regards to the vocal aspects.