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Purpose: To continue the validation process of the Decoding Development Monitoring Protocol (PRADE) in software format in the validity evidence stage based on response processes., Methods: 250 individuals participated in this study, 125 individuals from private schools and 125 individuals from public schools. The assessment was carried out in person using the software that hosts the instrument's tasks, which are organized into decoding linguistically balanced words and non-words, respecting the decoding rules of Brazilian Portuguese. The software prepares an individual performance report for each participant, counting the decoding time for each stimulus, as well as the number of words decoded correctly. The data is organized considering the correct decoding time of the stimuli, decoding accuracy and percentage of correct answers. All data underwent statistical analysis using SPSS software., Results: The data indicated an important effect of the length of words and non-words on public and private school students. Furthermore, it was possible to observe the evolution of decoding, depending on the school year, in all the variables studied. In both groups, a strong influence of non-words on student performance throughout Elementary School I was observed., Conclusion: The data indicate validity in the analysis of response processes, since it was possible to adequately characterize the performance of school children public and private throughout Elementary School I, characterizing each group, as well as their differences according to the advancement of schooling.

Purpose: to verify the performance of children with Developmental Language Disorder in decoding and writing tests in order to better understand their manifestations and the process of acquiring written language skills., Methods: The study subjects were 80 children. The Research Group consisted of 16 children diagnosed with Developmental Language Disorder, 13 males and 3 females, mean age of 7.3. The Control Group counted on 64 subjects paired in gender, age, education and socioeconomic level with the Control Group in a 4:1 ratio. The ability to decode words and pseudowords of both groups was evaluated, measuring the time spent to correctly read words and the percentage of correct answers, also considering the length of the word/pseudoword. The writing evaluation was carried out in the control group, which had its spelling errors analyzed and categorized. All data underwent descriptive and inferential statistical analysis., Results: The data indicated a longer decoding time and a lower percentage of correct answers for the children from the Research Group. Regarding spelling errors, there was a predominance of arbitrary spelling errors., Conclusion: The data showed that children with Developmental Language Disorder tend to have a longer decoding time, greater percentage of errors than their peers and tend to present spelling errors more concentrated in natural orthography.

Purpose: To verify whether the performance in the first assessment of pretend play of children with diagnostic hypothesis of developmental language disorder, correlates with the performance in formal tests of non-verbal intellectual function and both receptive and expressive vocabulary after 5 years old., Methods: The research comprised 26 subjects, 19 of whom were male, and 7 were female, with an mean age of 4:10. All participants presented a diagnostic hypothesis of developmental language disorder based on inclusion and exclusion criteria described internationally. Data were analyzed in relation to pretend play, vocabulary and performance in standardized intellectual assessment test; we also investigated correlation between them. All data underwent statistical analysis and the confidence intervals were 95%., Results: As for pretend play, it was found that most children with suspected developmental language disorder present more primitive symbolic development. Regarding vocabulary, the data show greater performance in receptive vocabulary than in expressive. In the assessment of the intelligence quotient, the children obtained, in their majority, classifications in the mean score and superior score to their age. Regarding the interaction between studied variables, no correlation was found., Conclusion: No relationship was found between the studied variables. The data are discussed in the light of international literature and promote important reflections on the symbolic-linguistic development of this population.

Purpose: To investigate lexical performance and verbal short-term memory ability in premature infants at preschool age and compare the results with their full-term peers., Methods: Forty preschool children aged between 4 and 5 years and 11 months participated on the study and were equally divided into two groups considering their gestational age: preterm and full-term. Groups did not differ on age, family income and maternal education. Participants were paired according to their chronological age and their socioeconomic status. Their performance was assessed using expressive vocabulary and verbal short-term memory tests. Inferential statistical analysis was performed using the Mann-Whitney and the Fisher exact test., Results: Group performance did not differ on vocabulary, but premature children showed an inferior performance on nonword repetition tasks., Conclusion: These data indicates that preschoolers born premature performed statistically lower than their peers born full-term on nonword repetition task. Thus, premature birth was associated to vocabulary development on typically developing range, but also to verbal short-term memory impairments.

Objective to investigate the performance of European Portuguese children in a Brazilian test of expressive vocabulary, seeking to identify differences between age groups and gender, and to verify its applicability in this population. Methods the sample consisted of 150 typical developed children, of both genders, between the ages of 5 and 6. All children attended public schools in the north area of Portugal. To assess the semantic performance, the expressive vocabulary sub-test of the language test (ABFW) was used, considering the percentage of usual verbal assignments and the classification (adequate/inadequate) according to the Brazilian reference values. Results the performance of the European Portuguese children indicated that at age 6 they have a higher percentage of correct answers in expressive vocabulary. As for the gender, there were only occasional differences: the girls showed a greater dominance in the semantic fields of clothing (both ages) and furniture and utensils (at age 5), whereas the boys showed more dominance in the semantic field means of transportation (6 years). Regarding classification, there was no difference between age groups in overall performance. Only the semantic field shapes and colors had more individuals of 6 years with inadequate performance. Conclusion the reference values adopted in the Brazilian population for semantic performance indicated that more than 80% of the children of each age group could have their performance classified as adequate. Such evidence suggests that this tool shows potential as an instrument of quantitative vocabulary's assessment of 5 and 6-years old children in European Portuguese.

Purpose: this study investigated and compared the performance of school-aged children with specific language impairment (SLI) and their peers typically developing language in alliteration and rhyme tests. The study also aimed to evaluate the influence of semantic and phonological distractors on both tests., Methods: twelve school-aged children with SLI (study group - SG) and 48 peers typically developing language (control group - CG) aged 7 to 9 years. All of them were on 2nd or 3rd grade and presented hearing thresholds within normal limits and appropriate nonverbal intellectual performance. The experimental assessment consisted in alliteration and rhyme tests with semantic and/or phonological distractors., Results: intragroup analysis showed that both groups presented lower performance in rhyme than alliteration activities (CG p<.001; SG p=.011). Intergroup analyses revealed that the SG had a poorer performance in both tasks in comparison to the CG (alliteration p=.001; rhyme p=.009). The error analysis pointed out that in alliteration, the SG opted more frequently for semantic (p=.004) and other distractors (p<.001) than the CG, whereas in rhyme tests, they opted more frequently for phonological (p=.048) and other distractors (p=.031)., Conclusion: the SG presented difficulty in alliteration and rhyme tasks, indicating poorer performance than their peers without language impairment. School-aged children with SLI attested that they analyze phonological awareness stimuli in a more general way, leading them to overlook relevant segmental aspects. These data reinforce the need for early intervention of these abilities in this population.

Purpose: To compare the functional use of verbs and nouns by Brazilian Portuguese-speaking children with language impairment (LI) and to verify whether their use of these word classes is different from that of children with typical language development (TLD). This study also aimed to compare the use of each verb type between groups., Methods: Participants were 80 preschool children, 20 of them diagnosed with LI and 60 with TLD. The age ranges of participants were 3 to 6 years for children with LI and 2 to 4 years for children with TLD. Individuals were paired based on their expressive language age. Ludic interaction was used to elicit the speech sample from which nouns and verbs were selected from spontaneous speech. All nouns and verbs were tabulated and verbs were classified., Results: Preschoolers with LI use verbs more often than nouns in their production of spontaneous speech. The use of nouns presented no difference between the groups, but verb use frequency was higher in children with LI for the 3-year-old subgroup. The verbs most frequently used by children with LI were copula, intransitive, and transitive direct. Comparison between the groups revealed few differences regarding the use of transitive direct, bitransitive, and copular verbs. Only transitive circumstantial verbs were more often used by children with TLD at all ages., Conclusion: The use of nouns and verbs by children with LI complies with the typical development standard, but it occurs more slowly. The use of verbs with fewer complements is predominant in these children.

Purpose: This study aimed to explore quantitative and qualitative effects of type of school and specific language impairment (SLI) on different language abilities., Methods: 204 Brazilian children aged from 4 to 6 years old participated in the study. Children were selected to form three groups: 1) 63 typically developing children studying in private schools (TDPri); 2) 102 typically developing children studying in state schools (TDSta); and 39 children with SLI studying in state schools (SLISta). All individuals were assessed regarding expressive vocabulary, number morphology and morphosyntactic comprehension., Results: All language subsystems were vulnerable to both environmental (type of school) and biological (SLI) effects. The relationship between the three language measures was exactly the same to all groups: vocabulary growth correlated with age and with the development of morphological abilities and morphosyntactic comprehension. Children with SLI showed atypical errors in the comprehension test at the age of 4, but presented a pattern of errors that gradually resembled typical development., Conclusion: The effect of type of school was marked by quantitative differences, while the effect of SLI was characterised by both quantitative and qualitative differences.

Introduction Preterm birth causes problems that are not restricted to perinatal mortality. Some premature, even in the absence of brain damage, have negative effects on various aspects of development, such as language difficulties. Objective This study aimed to verify the linguistic performance of preterm children at 2 years old, considering the chronological age and corrected age. Methods The study included 23 preterm children and applied the Test of Early Language Development- TELD-3 to assess the language skills. Results The premature children showed the linguistic performance alterations in Teld-3 in 39.13% of cases. They were also analyzed considering the delay to the chronological and corrected ages and there was no difference in performance for both receptive subtests (p = 0.250) and significant (p = 1.000). Conclusion The group of premature children at 2 years is a population at risk for language disorders that cannot be compensated with age correction.

The assessment of language skills in early childhood can provide important information about the future of literacy and academic performances. Children with reading difficulties should be identified early in their education, before they suffer from shortcomings and experience failures and feel discouraged at school. Considering the importance of early identification of language disorders and the shortage of standardized instruments for the Brazilian scenario, the overall objective of this study was to translate and adapt the Dyslexia Early Screening Test - Second Edition (DEST-2) to, subsequently, verify its applicability and efficacy in preschoolers who had Brazilian Portuguese as their native language. The study was composed of 20 children of both genders, regularly enrolled in a public school in the metropolitan region of São Paulo, none had any complaints related to learning and no indicators of sensory, neurological, cognitive, or behavioral disorders. It was observed that there was no need for significant changes to the original structure of the DEST-2 or in their administration instructions format. The performance of the children in the translated and in the national exams that were used as a benchmark was compatible, suggesting that the adjustments made met the equivalences needed to utilize this instrument with Brazilian children. A randomized study that will complement the preliminarily data obtained is in progress. Taking into consideration the linguistic and cultural diversity of Brazil, it is imperative that the translated version of the DEST-2 can be applied on a large scale and in several states of the country, in order to allow the use of this instrument as a language assessment tool in Brazil.

Purpose: To compare the occurrence of speech disfluencies during narrative production in children with specific language impairment (SLI) and their age-matched peers., Methods: The study included 60 children aged between 7 and 10 years, 40 with typical language development and 20 with SLI. For data collection, a series of 15 stories was used, each one represented by pictures composed of four scenes. Narratives were transcripted and the speech disfluencies presented on them were classified as stuttering-like disfluencies (part-word repetition, single-syllable word repetition, and dysrhythmic phonation - prolongations, blocks and broken words) or other disfluencies (interjection, revision/abandoned utterances, and multisyllable/phrase repetition). The disfluency categories were compared in each group and its occurrence was also compared between groups., Results: The occurrence of stuttering-like and other disfluencies did not differ among children with typical language development, whereas children with SLI produced other disfluencies. Between-group comparison showed that children with SLI produced more disfluencies of both types than their age-matched peers., Conclusion: Children with SLI showed more speech disfluencies during narrative production than their age-matched peers, and the most common disfluencies used by them were not typical of people who stutter (interjection, revision/abandoned utterances, and multisyllable/phrase repetition).

Introduction: It is crucial to understand the complex processing of acoustic stimuli along the auditory pathway; comprehension of this complex processing can facilitate our understanding of the processes that underlie normal and altered human communication., Aim: To investigate the performance and lateralization effects on auditory processing assessment in children with specific language impairment (SLI), relating these findings to those obtained in children with auditory processing disorder (APD) and typical development (TD)., Material and Methods: Prospective study. Seventy-five children, aged 6-12 years, were separated in three groups: 25 children with SLI, 25 children with APD, and 25 children with TD. All went through the following tests: speech-in-noise test, Dichotic Digit test and Pitch Pattern Sequencing test., Results: The effects of lateralization were observed only in the SLI group, with the left ear presenting much lower scores than those presented to the right ear. The inter-group analysis has shown that in all tests children from APD and SLI groups had significantly poorer performance compared to TD group. Moreover, SLI group presented worse results than APD group., Conclusion: This study has shown, in children with SLI, an inefficient processing of essential sound components and an effect of lateralization. These findings may indicate that neural processes (required for auditory processing) are different between auditory processing and speech disorders.

Purpose: To describe the linguistic performance of Brazilian Portuguese-speaking children with Down syndrome by analyzing their Mean Length Utterance; to compare their performance to that of children with Specific Language Impairment and Typical Development; and to verify whether children with Down syndrome present developmental language delay or disorder., Method: Participants were 25 children with Down syndrome (Research Group), matched by mental age to a Control Group of typically developing children, and to a Control Group of children with Specific Language Impairment. Participants were divided into subgroups, according to age range (three, four and five years). Speech samples were collected for the Research Group, and the Mean Length Utterance was analyzed for morphemes and words., Results: Differences were observed between the performance of the Research Group and both Control Groups, and the former presented inferior Mean Length Utterance values for all age ranges, characterizing a delay in grammar and general language development., Conclusion: The description of the linguistic abilities of Brazilian Portuguese-speaking children with Down syndrome indicated important grammatical deficits, especially regarding the use of functional words.

Purposes: To translate and adapt the Clinical Evaluation of Language Functions--4th Edition (CELF-4) to Brazilian Portuguese., Method: One hundred and sixty normal language development school children between the ages of seven and ten, half from public schools and the other half from private schools, both located on the east side of São Paulo., Results: CELF-4's translation and adjustment to Brazilian Portuguese language showed equivalence between the original and translated versions, which demonstrates that there were no significant changes in the test's form and content. Cronbach's α test was used in order to verify CELF-4's subtests internal consistency, in other words, if every subtest measures consistently the evaluated constructors. In this analysis, we observed that by excluding right or wrong items, and problematic items from the pool (those different from the rest of the group), all analyzed subtest presented satisfactory internal consistency, except for the Word Association Task for eight years old., Conclusion: Most subtests, as well as the Pragmatic Profile and the Observational Evaluation Scale, were simply translated, dismissing significant adaptations. The alterations performed were due to morphosyntactic and phonological differences between both languages. CELF-4's translated and adapted version to Brazilian Portuguese was able to characterize the language performance in the studied population.

Purpose: The purpose of this study was to establish a profile of the spelling patterns studied in students from public and private schools and to describe a word spelling task for clinical and educational settings., Methods: Eighty-two fourth grade students belonging to the elementary school of public and private schools in São Paulo, ranging in age from nine to ten years, took part in this study. The spelling task consisted of a list of ten high frequency words (HFW), ten low frequency words (LFW), and ten pseudowords (PW), in which the typology and number of spelling errors were described. To compare the average number of mistakes on the HFWs, LFWs, and PWs, we used an analysis of variance and Tukey's multiple comparisons (p<0.05). Using a cluster analysis, homogeneous groups were formed based on their performance., Results: Results indicated that the average number of mistakes in the LFWs was higher than in the HFWs (p=0.000) and PWs (p=0.000), and the number of mistakes in the HFWs was lower than in the PWs (p=0.009). The highest number of mistakes was found in the following categories: "others", "rule generalization", "omission", "voiced-voiceless", and "addition". There were no mistakes of the type "ão-am" and "blend-separation" in the HFWs., Conclusion: Spelling errors are a part of the process of learning to write, and students can show some variance in spelling performance. Furthermore, students need to be stimulated to analyze words and their aspects of phonology, morphology, and semantics. An analysis from the types of errors is not enough to plan intervention programs, but instead is necessary to understand the strategies that the child uses to write.

Purpose: To determine whether word class has any influence on the mean duration of silent pauses in the spoken narratives of children with specific language impairment (SLI) and in those with typical language development (TLD)., Methods: The study sample consisted of 60 children in the age range from 7 to 10 years: 20 with SLI; and 40 with TLD. Each child produced 15 narratives, each based on a set of four pictures (scenes) and each set of pictures being more complex than the last. The narratives were analyzed, and nouns, adjectives, verbs, conjunctions, prepositions, and pronouns were identified. A computer program was used in order to determine the duration (in milliseconds) of the silent pauses preceding words of each class., Results: In both groups, silent pauses were shortest before nouns and longest before conjunctions. For all word classes, the mean duration of silent pauses was longer in the SLI group than in the TLD group., Conclusion: Word class influences the duration of silent pauses, which are shorter before nouns and longer before conjunctions. Children with SLI produce longer silent pauses, possibly because of their language processing difficulties.

Purpose: To verify the average time of silent pauses in narratives and the influence of story's complexity in the occurrence of these pauses in narratives of children with typical language development and children with specific language impairment (SLI), and further to compare these aspects between groups., Methods: Sixty children aged between seven to ten years took part in this research, being 40 typical language developing children and 20 with SLI. To collect data, each child produced 15 narratives, each one based on a four-scene-sequence. These narratives show increasing complexity of the relations between the characters, since absence of intentionality (mechanical and behavioral sequences) to relations between characters with mental states attribution (intentional sequences), which allowed the survey of the average time of silent pauses in the narratives produced., Results: Story's complexity has influenced the average time of silent pauses in narratives of children with typical language development, however, for children with SLI this pattern was not observed. The comparison between groups indicates a significant difference in all types of narratives, with the highest average in the group with SLI., Conclusion: Due to their linguistic impairment, children with SLI had longer silent pauses in their narratives. Story complexity influenced the average time of silent pauses in the narratives of children with typical language development, but this difference did not occur in the narratives of children with SLI.

Purpose: To investigate the conflict resolution abilities of children with Specific Language Impairment, and to verify whether the time of speech-language therapy correlates to the performance on the conflict resolution task., Methods: Participants included 20 children with Specific Language Impairment (Research Group) and 40 children with normal language development (Control Group), with ages ranging from 7 years to 8 years and 11 months. To assess the conflict resolution abilities, five hypothetical contexts of conflict were presented. The strategies used by the children were classified and scored by the following levels: level 0 (solutions that do not match the other levels), level 1 (physical solutions), level 2 (unilateral solutions), level 3 (cooperative solutions), and level 4 (mutual solutions)., Results: Statistical analysis showed group effect for the variable total score. There was a difference between the groups for modal development level, with higher level of modal development observed in the Control Group. There was no correlation between the period of speech-language therapy attendance and the total score., Conclusion: Children with Specific Language Impairment present difficulties in solving problems, in view of the fact that they mainly use physical and unilateral strategies. There was no correlation between the time of speech-language therapy and performance in the task.

Purpose: The purpose of this study was to design a short-term memory test, to describe quantitative performance in typically language developing children and to verify the relationship between the non-words repetition and oral phonological measure., Methods: The participants included 136 typically language developing children aged from 3 years to 6 years and 11 months old in this study, who were evaluated. The test consisted of 40 non-words of one, two, three, and four syllables. The subjects' repetitions were transcribed and the number of right answers was calculated for each age range., Results: The effect of age was observed in the test, as well as the effect of length, only for disyllabic non-words. The performance in the non-word repetition task showed correlation with the oral phonology measure., Conclusion: The test designed in this research was able to verify the short-term memory in typically language developing children and the results showed correlation between this memory and phonological performance.

The objective of this study was to identify the situations that cause pleasure or distress at work among the Community Health Agents (CHA) in a city in Rio Grande do Sul state/Brazil. A qualitative study was performed with 24 agents as the participants. Data collection took place in 2009 through the use of focal groups, using the thematic analysis technique. The situations causing pleasure at work were: being recognized, solving problems, working with peers and being creative. Situations causing distress were: deficiencies in the health service; lack of knowledge regarding their roles; lack of recognition; the stress of teamwork; the obligation of living and working in the same area; daily living and becoming involved with the social problems of the community; and being exposed to violence, which resulted in fear. It was verified that there is a need for adopting interventions with a view to promoting better working conditions, professional satisfaction and the health of community agents.

Objective: This study aimed to examine drug packaging and labeling, identifying similarities among them that may lead to medication errors, which may occur by unintentional substitution, in different sectors of the pharmacy of a university hospital in northeastern Brazil., Methods: Cross-sectional observational study, which included 300 pharmaceutical presentations (150 pairs) that were photographed from May to December 2010. Concordance analysis of data related to the pictures of possibly similar packaging and labels was validated using the Kappa index., Results: Of all drugs evaluated (n = 150), about 43% of "possibly similar drugs" were in the central pharmacy (n = 65) and were related to small-volume parenteral solutions. The strength of interobserver agreement in the category "very similar to each other" was considered "satisfactory" (Kappa = 0584) in 90.66% of the drugs evaluated (n = 136). The overall Kappa analysis of the study was 0.488. Variables with statistical significance were: "same color label or packaging", with the respective percentages for both primary and secondary packaging (52%-44%), p = 0.028; the variable "same color of drug presentation" obtained similar values and statistical significance to the previous variable; for the variable "same arrangement of words", the values found for both packages were close to 50%, p = 0.001; and for the variable "same color of the words", the percentages were: (50.7% - 44%) (p = 0.008)., Conclusion: Our results indicate similarities related to the labeling of drugs with potential for errors, especially in dispensing, storage, and administration if preventive measures are not adopted.

Purpose: To explore which measures could predict the persistency of developmental language impairment (DLI) based on the association between the initial language assessment and the therapeutic prognosis of the child., Methods: In this retrospective study, the records of 42 children with diagnosis of DLI were analyzed. Participants' age varied from 21 to 63 months at the first language assessment, which included vocabulary, phonology, pragmatics and fluency tests. The performance of subjects in each test was scored from 0 to 4, based on the severity of the deficits, and the maximum score corresponded to age-adequate performance. As prognostic measure, we accounted the length of therapy (in sessions) of patients who were discharged, were referred to another service (because the deficits had become very mild), or remained in therapy (persistent language difficulties)., Results: There was association between initial assessment (normal or mild alterations for vocabulary and pragmatics abilities) and prognosis (<135 therapeutic sessions). Vocabulary was the only variable able to predict the length of therapy. Being classified as severe in this measure caused the estimate of treatment to increase, in average, 112 sessions., Conclusion: The first vocabulary assessment can contribute to predict the child's therapeutic prognosis. This finding is clinically and scientifically relevant to Speech-Language Pathology, since it offers an auxiliary resource to the prognosis and therapeutic planning in cases of DLI.

Purpose: To verify the use of conjunctions in narratives, and to investigate the influence of stimuli's complexity over the type of conjunctions used by children with specific language impairment (SLI) and children with typical language development., Methods: Participants were 40 children (20 with typical language development and 20 with SLI) with ages between 7 and 10 years, paired by age range. Fifteen stories with increasing of complexity were used to obtain the narratives; stories were classified into mechanical, behavioral and intentional, and each of them was represented by four scenes. Narratives were analyzed according to occurrence and classification of conjunctions., Results: Both groups used more coordinative than subordinate conjunctions, with significant decrease in the use of conjunctions in the discourse of SLI children. The use of conjunctions varied according to the type of narrative: for coordinative conjunctions, both groups differed only between intentional and behavioral narratives, with higher occurrence in behavioral ones; for subordinate conjunctions, typically developing children's performance did not show differences between narratives, while SLI children presented fewer occurrences in intentional narratives, which was different from other narratives., Conclusion: Both groups used more coordinative than subordinate conjunctions; however, typically developing children presented more conjunctions than SLI children. The production of children with SLI was influenced by stimulus, since more complex narratives has less use of subordinate conjunctions.

Purpose: To investigate if the performance on linguistic tasks would be predictive of orthographic domain and quality of written productions., Methods: Participants were 82 fourth graders of Elementary Education, from public and private schools of São Paulo, with ages ranging from 9 years to 10 years and 2 months. The test battery was composed of an expressive vocabulary test, phonological awareness and rapid serial naming tasks, words and pseudowords spelling, and written text composition using a visual stimulus as a starting point. The statistical analysis included Spearman (r) correlations among all tasks., Results: The results indicated that the better the vocabulary skills, the smaller the number of spelling errors and the better the quality of the written text productions, considering all the analyzed categories. Also, the higher performance in both phonological awareness and rapid object naming tasks was correlated to fewer spelling errors and written text productions with greater grammatical structure., Conclusion: The linguistic abilities analyzed in this study were predictive of subjects' spelling performance. The vocabulary skills were predictive of the quality of written text productions. However, phonological awareness and rapid serial naming were only predictive of children's performance concerning the syntactic and grammatical structure of their written text productions.

Objective: To determine the clinical and epidemiological profile of patients who are candidates for TNF-α inhibitor use and are classified as having latent tuberculosis (LTB), as well as to evaluate the outcomes of prophylactic treatment with isoniazid., Methods: A prospective descriptive analysis followed by an analytical, observational, cross-sectional study of the outcomes of prophylactic treatment in a group of 45 candidates for TNF-α inhibitor use. We evaluated the patients through anamnesis, clinical examination, chest X-ray, and tuberculin skin test (TST) using the Mantoux method., Results: The mean age was 45 years, and 56.0% of the patients were female. Chronic rheumatic diseases, chronic dermatological diseases, and Crohn's disease were present in 46.7%, 40.0%, and 13.3% of the patients, respectively. The mean TST induration was 14.6 mm (range: 5-30 mm). The majority (n = 30) of the 45 patients (66.7%) had an induration > 10 mm. In the 16 patients with BCG vaccination scars, the mean induration was 15.7 mm, and 14 of those patients had an induration > 10 mm. Chest X-ray results were considered normal, with minimal alterations, in 64.4% and 35.6% of the patients, respectively. The treatment with isoniazid was abandoned by 1 patient (2.2%) and completed by 41 (91.2%), whereas it was interrupted because of drug-induced hepatitis in 2 (4.4%), and 1 patient (2.2%) was transferred to another hospital. Of those who completed the treatment, 5 experienced mild side effects., Conclusions: Determining the profile of candidates for TNF-α inhibitor use is important for the management of LTB treatment and for the establishment of clinical protocols for the use and monitoring of the use of these medications.

Purpose: To verify whether the use of a shorter filmed sample influences the results of pragmatic assessment in children with language impairment., Methods: Data was obtained from videotaped samples and protocols for pragmatic analysis of 30 children between 3 and 6 years old. Each 15-minute sample (total moment) was analyzed and divided into three moments with five minutes each (initial, medial and final moments). For data comparison, the number of communicative acts per minute, the percentage of communicative space, the predominant communicative functions and the percentage of each communicative mean (gestural, vocal and verbal) were registered in all moments., Results: No differences were found between moments for number of communicative acts, communicative space used and communicative functions used. Regarding communicative functions, in all moments the most recurrent were Comment, Information Request and Performative, and the least frequent were Request for Social Routine, Non-Focused and Narrative. Regarding communicative means, a difference was found between initial and final moments (p=0.048) and a tendency of difference was found between initial and medial moments (p=0.097) only in the use of the gestural mean., Conclusion: Pragmatic assessment in children with language impairment can be reduced five-minute samples, as long as the first minutes are discarded and the medial or final minutes are used for analysis.

Background: The narrative abilities provide valuable information about the linguistic, cognitive and social development of school-age children with typical language development (TLD)., Aim: To examine the temporal ordering of figures and the narrative abilities of school-age children with TLD in relation to the type of discourse presented., Method: Participants of this study included 60 children with TLD aged between seven and ten years of age. Fifteen stories were used in the study. Each story was illustrated by four figures. The sequences of figures were created and classified as mechanical, behavioral and intentional according to the relationships presented among the characters. Data were transcribed and analyzed regarding the type of discourse (descriptive, causal and intentional) and the type of organization of the figures., Results: No differences between age groups were observed for temporal ordering. For all age groups, the most frequently presented discourse type was the causal one. Statistically significant differences were observed among age groups for the causal and intentional discourse type. Inasmuch as the age increased, school-age children with TLD reduced the use of the descriptive discourse and increased the use of the intentional one., Conclusion: The ability of temporal ordering is already developed in children with TLD at seven-years of age. The type of discourse was influenced by age and by the type of story presented.

Background: The Auditory Nerve Recovery Function (REC) may be extracted from the Electrically Evoked Compound Action Potential (ECAP). ECAP may be influenced by the stimulation received (or the deprivation of stimulation) and by the etiology of the hearing loss, consequently it might affect the REC., Aim: To verify whether there is a correlation between the REC and each of the following factors: etiology, time of auditory deprivation and time of hearing aid use before cochlear implantation (CI)., Method: Retrospective study. Data regarding etiology, time of auditory deprivation, time of hearing aid use before cochlear implantation were collected in children and adults who received a Nucleus®24. All patients who presented neural response at surgery and whose REC was assessed intraoperatively were included in this study. Fifty patients were selected, 26 children and 24 adults. Patients were divided according to the REC classification into three groups (GI: fast recovery; GII: intermediate recovery and GIII: slow recovery) to allow correlation analysis., Results: Data analysis did not show any statistically significant correlation between the recovery function and the pre-implant studied characteristics. Nevertheless, it was observed that there was a greater concentration of both, children and adults, in the intermediate recovery function values. GI did not present individuals with infectious etiologies, such as meningitis, rubella and cytomegalovirus. REC average scores were slower in infectious etiologies for both children and adults., Conclusion: There was no statistically significant correlation between the recovery function and factors such as etiology, time of auditory deprivation and time of hearing aid use prior to CI.

Background: children with Specific Language Impairment (SLI) have difficulties with speech processing. These difficulties affect the development of phonologic representations., Aim: to evaluate the abilities of children with normal language development (NLD) and those with SLI in distinguishing words from non-words in a lexical decision task., Method: two groups were involved in this study: the Control Group (GC), with no language disorders, composed by 36 subjects, and the Research Group (RG), with 18 subjects, all diagnosed with SLI, aging form 4 to 8:9 years. Children from both groups were arranged in three subgroups, according to the receptive vocabulary. Forty eight three syllable words were selected, being 24 real words and 24 that were manipulated in order to obtain non-words. Three variables were considered: (a) modification extension, (b) modification positioning and (c) modification type. Children had to decide whether a phonological sequence consisted of a word or a non-word., Results: even though children were matched by lexical age, there were differences between GC and RG. The RG presented more difficulty in lexical decision, not only for words but also for non-words. Both groups, with lexical age of 4 years, struggled more in this task when compared with groups with lexical age of 5 and 6 years., Conclusion: children with SLI presented deficit in phonological representation when compared with children with NLD. This difference in performance can be explained by differences in the formation and retention of working memory representations, auditory discrimination and motor planning and execution.

Background: syllable deletion (SD) frequently occurs in Specific Language Impairment and can indicate a deviant factor in the phonologic acquisition process of these subjects., Aim: to verify the occurrence of SD in the spontaneous speech of children with SLI and to verify the influence of word extension and syllable stress in this process., Methods: participants were 27 children with SLI, aged between 3:0 and 5:11 years, in a weekly speech treatment, who presented 50% of correct answers in specific phonology assessment tasks or who presented speech intelligibility within levels that allowed assessment through spontaneous speech. Speech samples were obtained during a play interaction situation between the researcher and the child and through speech elicited by the presentation of a picture. The occurrence of SD was analyzed considering the following parameters: extension of the produced words, preference for stressed or unstressed syllables, position of the syllable within the word were SD occurred., Results: there was a preference for the production of dissyllabic words (X2 = 72,49; p < 0,001); the occurrence of SD was significantly higher in polysyllabic words (X2 = 11,22; p < 0,004) and on initial syllables (X2 = 34,99; p < 0,001). Unstressed syllables were more often reduced (Z= -5.79, p <0001)., Conclusion: the preference for the production of dissyllabic words reassures the difficulty of these children with complex syllabic structures and, in part, explains their spontaneous speech unintelligibility. The predominance of unstressed syllable deletion indicates the preference for producing the nucleus of words, where emphasis is given to the stressed syllable during language expression.

Background: verb acquisition., Aim: to verify quantitative and qualitative verb diversity in the spontaneous speech of Brazilian Portuguese-speaking preschoolers and verb acquisition from 2 to 4 years of age., Method: participants were sixty preschoolers equally matched on gender and age, divided into three groups: GI (2-year-old children), GII (3-year-old children) and GIII (4-year-old children). Spontaneous speech samples obtained through playing interactions, in educational contexts, were collected, and verb productions were listed., Results: children used 167 different verbs. The quantitative analysis indicated significant statistical differences between all groups (p< .001), with gradual increase of verb usage from 2 to 4 years of age. However, no statistical difference (p= .956) was observed between genders., Conclusion: preschoolers improved their use of verbs during the initial stages of language acquisition, irrespective of their gender.

Background: narrative abilities provide rich information about the linguistic, cognitive and social competences of children with typical language development and with SLI (Specific Language Impairment). Children with SLI present deficits in speech elaboration, which is generally confusing and repetitive. Furthermore, there may be difficulty with text organization, understanding the underlying time and cause-effect relationships and in the development of the structural knowledge needed for comprehension., Aim: to characterize the narration of stories by children with SLI regarding the type and content of speech and to compare their performance to that of their typically developing peers, matched according to the chronological age., Method: two groups participated in this study: Control Group (CG), 24 children with no language deficits and Research Group (RG), 8 children with the diagnosis of SLI. To elicit the narratives, a series of 15 stories were used, represented by illustrations containing four scenes each. These sequences were created and classified as mechanical, behavioral and intentional, according to the relationship established between the characters., Results: children with SLI presented poorer narratives when compared to their typically developing peers, independent of the type of story which was presented. Moreover, children with SLI showed a similar perception of the mental states when compared to children with normal development., Conclusions: these results indicate that, regardless the type of story, children with SLI have difficulties in the use of language, that is, with the linguistic abilities necessary to narrate stories and not in the perception of the characters' mental state.

Background: application of an American early language test in Brazilian Portuguese-speaking subjects., Aim: to compare the performance of normal Brazilian Portuguese and American English-speaking subjects on the Test of Early Language Development - Third Edition (TELD-3)., Method: participants of this study were 120 subjects of both genders, ranging in age from 2:00 to 7:11 years (20 subjects in each age range). Subjects were selected and tested individually by the researcher. A comparative analysis of the subjects' performances with that observed in English-speaking children was made., Results: the results indicated that Brazilian and American subjects presented similar performances until the age of 4:11 years. Portuguese-speaking children of 5, 6 and 7 years presented higher scores on the receptive subtest of Form A when compared to their American pairs. Portuguese-speaking subjects of 5 and 6 years presented lower scores on the expressive subtest of Form B when compared to their American pairs., Conclusion: the translation of diagnostic instruments that are already available in other languages can lessen the lack of such resources in countries where these instruments are not yet available. Furthermore, this practice can allow cross-cultural studies which are relevant for researches on child language and language disabilities.

Background: relationship between Specific Language Impairment (SLI) and visual short-term memory., Aim: to compare the performance of children with SLI to a control group of children with normal language development in tasks involving visual short-term memory., Method: subjects were 20 SLI children (ages 3;0 to 5;11), and 29 children with normal language development (ages 2;0 to 4;11), assessed in tasks of visual short-term memory involving picture recognition and localization recall of objects previously manipulated by the examiner. As the diagnosis of SLI implies in the linguistic age being at least one year below the expected for the chronological age, the control group was also constituted by younger children with normal language development., Results: SLI children presented an inferior performance when compared to their pairs of the same age, similar to the younger children or below the younger age group., Conclusion: SLI children presented deficits in tasks involving visual short-term memory, which must be discussed in order to understand the nature of the disorder and also in terms of speech-language intervention.

Background: children start to differentiate questions from non-questions and also start to adjust their answers at the age of two. This participation in verbal exchanges requires basic conversational abilities such as the competence to initiate interact and reply appropriately, and to maintain the interaction., Aim: to analyze and correlate the pragmatic aspects of language, related to the type of answers, during an adult/child interaction in children with normal language development and in those diagnosed with Specific Language Impairment (SLI)., Method: 16 children with SLI (GP) and ages between three and six years, and 60 children with normal language development (GC) and ages between three to five years - 20 for each age group, 10 of each gender. Data gathering occurred in two different days, with the adult/child interaction being facilitated by toys. Data (speech of child and adult) were transcribed and analyzed, obtaining a Reliability Index of 93.75%, and later were submitted to statistical analyses., Results: answers were classified in categories and grouped according to the following: Adequate Answers (RA) and Inadequate Answers (RI), always in accordance to the established communicative context. GC presented a significantly higher average of RA when compared to GP, and GP presented a significantly higher average of RI when compared to GC. GC presented a decrease in the use of RI at the increase of age. GP maintained the use of RI at the increase of age, including the age group of six., Conclusion: it was observed that the increase in age emphasized differences between GP and GC. GP presented a less effective communication maintaining unintelligible speech, whereas GC presented more elaborate communication abilities. More studies with older children are necessary for the better understanding of the observed trends.

Background: A follow-up study of an individual with Specific Language Impairment., Aim: To describe the oral and written language development of an adolescent during 13 years of intervention., Method: A Male subject, 16 years old, in the second year of high school, who was assessed during the years with different language and auditory procedures., Results: The Subject still presents oral and written language deficits, but these do not compromise intelligibility in any level., Conclusion: The studied subject presented significant language development during the therapeutic process. However, corroborating with other literature data, deficits still remain.

Background: The ability of children with Specific Language Impairment (SLI) to use and comprehend closed-class words., Aim: Acknowledging the increasing search for the characterization of linguistic performance of this population in different languages, as well as the findings of international literature that stress the difficulty of these children in using closed-class grammatical morphemes, the aim of this study was to analyze the performance of children with SLI in tests of production and comprehension of prepositions. The purpose of this research was also to compare the performance of these children to that of their typical language developing peers, in terms of the overall index of correct answers and the most frequent types of errors in both groups., Method: An objective test was developed in order to analyze production and comprehension of four types of prepositions that are used to establish the following semantic relations: with (company relation); by (way relation); in, on or at (place/position relations); and to (destination relation). This test was carried out with 19 SLI children and 29 typically developing children (CG--control group), one year younger than the research group., Results: SLI children presented the same pattern of results, although delayed, of children in the CG in the comprehension test. In the task involving production, however, the performance of SLI children was quantitatively and qualitatively inferior to their typical developing controls. This performance was mainly characterized by the omission of prepositions., Conclusion: The findings corroborate the view that grammatical words constitute a challenge for SLI children, since they presented many errors that suggest difficulties in the domain of prepositions. The results also emphasized, for the SLI group, deficits in the expressive language.

Background: Specific language impairment., Aim: To establish relations between the performance of subjects in phonologic and pragmatic tests., Method: Tabulation and analyses of the data of phonologic and pragmatic tests of 20 children with ages raging from 3:0 to 5:11 years, with the diagnoses of Specific Language Impairment (SLI)., Results: The statistic analyses showed good correlations between developmental processes (DP) and non-developmental processes (NDP), DP and the use of verbal mean, vocal mean and number of communication acts per minute., Conclusion: The performance in the phonological and pragmatic tests does not seem to have a direct correlation in subjects with specific language impairment.

Background: to investigate the pragmatic difficulties presented by children with specific language impairment and to verify how these deficits influence their discourse performance., Aim: to analyze the request-response sequences in the discourse of normal and Specific Language Impairment Children (SLI) during a 20-minute free-play situation with an adult., Method: subjects of this study were 29 children, male and female, with ages ranging from 2:0 to 4:11 years. Data was collected during a free-play situation with an adult., Results: SLI children frequently ignored the questions made by the adult and responded innappropriately more often., Conclusion: qualitative and quantitative differences in the pattern of responses and in the use of pragmatic abilities were found for the SLI children.