PERTURBAÇÕES DA LINGUAGEM EM CRIANÇAS DO 1o ANO DE ESCOLARIDADE.

The goal of the present study is an early screening of language and articulation in children that have just started the primary school. Seventy hundred and ninety five children without mental, motor, and/or sensory development problems and who did not enrol a speech therapy program were studied. Assessments were performed at several primary schools from 10 Portuguese districts. Two different tools - a language screening test (GOL-E; Kay & Santos, 2003) and a test of verbal articulation (TAV; Guimarães & Grilo, 1996) were used. Results show that 32% of the children have a sign of language disorders. Worst results were found for all linguistic areas (semantics, morpho-syntax and phonology) in children from lower social classes. A relationship with the geographic birth area was also found. No significant gender differences were found for language results. On the other hand, in verbal articulation there are more problems in boys, being these disorders less frequent (23 %) than language disorders. Although some hypothetical false positives can be considered the importance of the results at the present study should be taken into consideration. Therefore, prevention measures must be taken in order to avoid learning and social problems impact on these children's future. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]