Avaliação comportamental do processamento auditivo em indivíduos pós - traumatismo cranioencefálico: estudo piloto

PURPOSE: to characterize the performance of individuals after traumatic brain injury in behavioral tests to evaluate auditory processing. METHOD: the participants of this research were 10 individuals with normal hearing with traumatic brain injury. They were submitted to: pure tone audiometry, speech audiometry, acoustic immittance measures (tympanometry and acoustic reflex) and behavioral evaluation of auditory processing (Sound Location Test, Verbal Sequential Memory, Non Verbal Sequential Memory, Duration Pattern Sequence Test, Dichotic Consonant-vowel, Staggered Spondaic Word (Portuguese version), Identification of synthetic sentences with competitive message, Random Gap Detection Test, Percentage Index of Speech Recognition with recording, speech test). RESULTS: the test of Duration Pattern indicated the test with the largest number of alteration (60%). The test with the most satisfactory average was the Percentage Index of Speech Recognition with recording (93%) and the less satisfactory average test was related to dichotic consonant-vowel (40,56%). The reversals (70%) represented the tendency of more frequent errors in the SSW. The damage of decoding was the most prevalent (100%), followed by the organization (90%), supra-segmental (60%) and encoding-gradual loss of memory (20%). There was no damage of encoding-integration. CONCLUSIONS: the patients after traumatic brain injury present auditory processing disorders of varying degrees, involving the processes of decoding and organization.