Aparecido José Couto Soares

Potenciais evocados auditivos de longa latência e processamento auditivo central em crianças com alterações de leitura e escrita: dados preliminares

INTRODUCAO: Atualmente, admite-se que individuos com alteracoes de leitura e escrita podem apresentar atraso no desenvolvimento das habilidades auditivas, o que pode interferir no processo de aprendizagem. A avaliacao das habilidades auditivas pode ocorrer de forma comportamental, por meio dos testes do processamento auditivo central (PAC), ou por meio da avaliacao eletrofisiologica, destacando-se os potenciais evocados auditivos de longa latencia (PEALL). A utilizacao dos PEALL como meio de avaliacao complementar de individuos com alteracoes de leitura e escrita pode se tornar um importante dado tanto para uma caracterizacao mais detalhada das alteracoes, como para o direcionamento terapeutico dessa populacao. OBJETIVO: Caracterizar o PAC e o PEALL em criancas com alteracoes de leitura e escrita. METODO: Pesquisa aprovada pela Comissao de Etica da Instituicao sob no 305/10. A avaliacao do PAC e do PEALL foi realizada em 12 criancas com idade entre oito e 12 anos (media de 10,6 anos), com alteracao de leitura e escrita confirmada em avaliacao especifica. RESULTADOS: As habilidades do PAC mais alteradas foram ordenacao temporal e figura-fundo para sons linguisticos. Foram encontrados resultados alterados no P300 e no MMN. CONCLUSAO: Os individuos com alteracoes de leitura e escrita apresentaram desempenho abaixo do esperado em testes do PAC. O MMN possibilitou uma melhor caracterizacao da funcao auditiva desta populacao. Houve indicios de associacao entre resultados do PAC e alteracao nos PEALL.

Memória operacional fonológica e consciência fonológica em escolares ao final do ciclo I do ensino fundamental

OBJETIVO: Investigar o desempenho de criancas ao final do Ciclo I do Ensino Fundamental em memoria operacional fonologica e consciencia fonologica, bem como a possivel relacao entre essas habilidades nesta faixa de escolaridade. METODOS: O grupo de pesquisa foi composto por 29 sujeitos de ambos os generos, com media de idade de 10 anos, todos regularmente matriculados no 5o ano do Ensino Fundamental com ausencia de alteracoes de linguagem oral e/ou escrita. Foi realizada a avaliacao da memoria operacional fonologica com a utilizacao do Teste de Repeticao de Pseudopalavras e, posteriormente, utilizou-se o Instrumento de Avaliacao Sequencial - CONFIAS para avaliar a consciencia fonologica. RESULTADOS: Os escolares apresentaram desempenho adequado na memoria operacional fonologica independente da similaridade da pseudopalavra. Para a consciencia fonologica, observou-se desempenho melhor no nivel silabico e inferior ao esperado para o nivel fonemico. Apesar de muitos estudos afirmarem a correlacao entre a memoria operacional fonologica e a consciencia fonologica, esta nao foi observada nesta amostra. CONCLUSAO: A ausencia de correlacao encontrada entre essas habilidades traz reflexoes quanto a possiveis fatores extrinsecos que podem influenciar o desempenho em consciencia fonologica.

The relevance of receptive vocabulary in reading comprehension

PURPOSE To characterize the performance of students from the 5th year of primary school, with and without indicatives of reading and writing disorders, in receptive vocabulary and reading comprehension of sentences and texts, and to verify possible correlations between both. METHODS This study was approved by the Research Ethics Committee of the institution (no. 098/13). Fifty-two students in the 5th year from primary school, with and without indicatives of reading and writing disorders, and from two public schools participated in this study. After signing the informed consent and having a speech therapy assessment for the application of inclusion criteria, the students were submitted to a specific test for standardized evaluation of receptive vocabulary and reading comprehension. The data were studied using statistical analysis through the Kruskal-Wallis test, analysis of variance techniques, and Spearmans rank correlation coefficient with level of significance to be 0.05. A receiver operating characteristic (ROC) curve (was constructed in which reading comprehension was considered as gold standard. RESULTS The students without indicatives of reading and writing disorders presented a better performance in all tests. No significant correlation was found between the tests that evaluated reading comprehension in either group. A correlation was found between reading comprehension of texts and receptive vocabulary in the group without indicatives. CONCLUSION In the absence of indicatives of reading and writing disorders, the presence of a good range of vocabulary highly contributes to a proficient reading comprehension of texts.

Processamento temporal e consciência fonológica nas alterações de leitura e escrita: dados preliminares

PURPOSE To verify if there is an association between temporal auditory tests and phonological awareness in individuals with reading and writing disorders. METHODS Sixteen children were subjects of this study, aged between 7 and 12 years old, who had reading and writing disorders confirmed after specific assessment. All participants underwent phonological awareness assessment using CONFIAS test. In order to assess the auditory temporal processing, duration and frequency pattern tests were used. RESULTS The descriptive analysis indicated low performance in syllabic and phonemic activities of phonological awareness as well as in temporal auditory tests. Fishers test indicated association between disorders in auditory temporal processing and phonological awareness (p>0.001). It suggests that disorders in temporal processing contribute to low performance in phonological awareness tasks. CONCLUSIONS There was association between performance in temporal auditory tests and in the phonological awareness. Data found provide reflections about including temporal auditory assessment among procedures used in the analysis of individuals with reading and writing disorders.

Interferências de estímulos visuais na produção escrita de escolares ouvintes sem queixas de alterações na escrita

PURPOSE: To investigate the influence of visual stimuli on the written production of Elementary School students with no complaints of reading and writing difficulties. METHODS: Participants were 25 Elementary School children without reading and writing complaints who were enrolled in 3rd and 4th grades of a public school. The following inclusion criteria were adopted: responses at 20 dBHL for frequencies from 500 Hz to 4 kHz on hearing screening; to be enrolled in school for at least two years; and to present alphabetic or orthographic writing level. Participants were divided into small groups, and the written productions were collected in two separate days. Productions were analyzed according to the criteria adopted, which were based on a study regarding communicative skills (generic, encyclopedic and linguistic). Data were statistically analyzed. RESULTS: There was no difference in the duration of writing elaboration, regardless the type of visual stimulus. As for the generic skills, the predominant type of discourse was the narrative genre. Regarding the encyclopedic skills, there was evidence of greater intertextuality for the action picture. With regards to the linguistic skills, the produced texts were long, with inadequate score, orthographic errors and partial overall cohesion. CONCLUSION: The visual stimuli presented did not interfere in the written production of Elementary School students regarding communicative skills.

Práticas de narrativas escritas: atuação fonoaudiológica

OBJETIVO: analisar a efetividade de um Programa de Promocao de Narrativas Escritas, em escolares da terceira serie do Ensino Fundamental de uma escola publica. METODO: vinte e um escolares de 3a series (14 meninas e sete meninos), entre oito anos e sete meses e 10 anos, foram avaliados quanto a producao escrita livre com base em um tema proposto antes e apos um Programa de Praticas de Narrativas Escritas. As producoes escritas foram analisadas qualitativa e quantitativamente por meio dos criterios das Competencias Comunicativas (Generica, Enciclopedica e Linguistica), sendo o desempenho classificado como Ruim, Regular, Bom e Otimo de acordo com a pontuacao adquirida. Estes dados foram classificados e comparados nos momentos inicial e final do programa e receberam tratamento estatistico. RESULTADOS: houve um aumento estatistico significante no numero de sujeitos que obtiveram a classificacao Otimo na avaliacao final. Quando os dados foram agrupados em dois: Ruim/Regular e Otimo/Bom tambem houve uma significância estatistica entre os momentos inicial e final uma vez que o numero de sujeitos do grupo Ruim/Regular reduziu-se enquanto que o Otimo/Bom aumentou significantemente. CONCLUSOES: o programa proposto foi efetivo uma vez que os escolares mostraram-se muito motivados e realizaram producoes narrativas escritas melhor elaboradas em relacao as Competencias Comunicativas.

The role of phonological awareness in reading comprehension

Mailing address: Aparecido José Couto Soares Universidade de São Paulo Departamento de Fisioterapia, Fonoaudiologia e Terapia Ocupacional Rua Cipotanea, 51 São Paulo, São Paulo, Brasil CEP: 05360-000 E-mail: ajcsoares@usp.br ABSTRACT Purpose: to characterize the performance of 4th grade-Elementary School students with and without signs of reading and writing disorders as for phonological awareness and reading comprehension, and also verify possible correlations between them. Methods: 60 children enrolled in the 4th grade of Elementary School from two public schools, whose parents signed the Informed Consent Form, participated in the present study. They were selected and organized in groups, with and without signs of reading and writing disorders. All students were individually assessed regarding their phonological awareness and reading comprehension of sentences and texts through standardized tests. The data underwent statistical analysis. Results: those with signs of reading and writing disorders showed the lowest performance in the reading comprehension of sentences and texts. A correlation was found between phonological awareness and reading comprehension of sentences and texts in both groups. Conclusion: students with no signs of reading and writing disorders had a higher performance in the skills assessed. The correlation found between phonological awareness and reading comprehension of sentences and texts shows not only the importance of metaphonological skills for a proficient reading, but also for a comprehensive one.

Influência da escolaridade em habilidades linguístico-cognitivas

PURPOSE: to verify the influence of schooling on Phonemic Awareness and Rapid Automatized Naming, and also the possible correlation between such skills, in students from the 3rd and 4th year of elementary school. METHODS: as sample, this study counted on 29 students from the 3rd (Group 1) and 28 from the 4th (Group 2) year of elementary school. All the participants were selected through standardized tests to Brazilian Portuguese regarding Phonology (Oral Language) and further reading, writing and arithmetic (Written Language). To asses Phonological Awareness it was applied the second part of a Phonological Awareness Test - Consciencia Fonologica - Instrumento de Avaliacao Sequencial (CONFIAS); the assessment of Rapid Automatized Naming was performed by the Comprehensive Test of Phonological Processing in its Brazilian Portuguese version. RESULTS: students from Group 1 showed lower performance in Phonological Awareness than Group 2, however with no significant difference. In relation to Rapid Automatized Naming, the time spent to naming and also the errors pattern was similar in both groups. There was difference only in the time spent to naming and in the errors pattern of numbers. CONCLUSION: there is influence of schooling, even slightly, on Phonological Awareness and Rapid Automatized Naming once students from Group 2 showed best results than Group 1 in both tests. Nevertheless no significant difference was found.

Phonological short-term memory and phonological awareness in students from the Elementary School

OBJECTIVES To characterize and compare the performance of students at the beginning and at the end of the elementary school in Short-Term Phonological Memory (STPM) and Phonological Awareness (PA). METHODS We assessed 80 students of both the genders who showed adequate linguistic and academic performance. The sample comprised 40 students in 1st grade and 40 in 5th grade from a public state school with mean age of 6.2 and 9.8 years, respectively. The STPM was assessed using a standardized test of Pseudoword Repetition. PA was assessed through a Sequential Assessment Test (CONFIAS). RESULTS No difference was found between the students of 1st and 5th years in STPM both in total score and concerning the similarity of the pseudowords. Regarding PA, there was a significant difference among the percentage distribution of correct answers in syllabic and phonemic tasks, and the students from 5th grade presented better performance. CONCLUSION At the beginning and at the end of the elementary school, there is no difference in STPM performance. On the other hand, there is difference in PA, which highlights the influence of schooling on PA development. The correlation between STPM and PA only in 5th-year students suggests that, at the beginning of literacy, STPM cannot be considered as a predictor to childrens performance in PA. Nevertheless, as the schooling advances, there is influence of PA on STPM.

Estímulos visuais e produção escrita de escolares com e sem queixas de alterações na escrita

This study aimed to verify the influence of visual stimuli on the written production of students with and without complaints of writing disorders. As subjects, it had 50 students from 4th and 5th grades of elementary school divided in G1 (with no complaints) and G2 (with complaints) who were instructed to perform a written production based on two different visual stimuli. Communicative Competence criteria were used in order to analyze the data. Regarding Generic Competence, the narrative genre was the most used for both groups. In relation to Encyclopedic Competence, there was significant difference only for the figures in sequence. Concerning Linguistic Competence, there was difference only in the Global Cohesion. There was no influence of the visual stimuli on the written production for both groups. Nevertheless, individual and social factors might have influenced the results.