Linguagem narrativa e fluência na síndrome de down: uma revisão

Indicators of speech fluency in stuttering and in phonological disorder

PURPOSE

To identify the indicators of speech fluency that differs subjects with stuttering, with phonological disorder, and with the two disorders in comorbidity.

METHODS

Thirty subjects aged 4-11 years old were divided into 3 groups, each one with 10 subjects: groups with developmental stuttering (SG), phonological disorder (PDG), and with two diagnoses in comorbidity (SPDG) participated in this study. The procedures were speech fluency and phonology evaluation. The data were submitted to statistical analysis.

RESULTS

Subjects from SG and SPDG showed a greater occurrence of stuttering-like disfluencies and total of disfluencies in relation to the subjects with PDG. Regarding to the other disfluencies, the three groups were similar. Subjects with PDG showed fewer monosyllabic word repetitions, part of word repetition and prolongations in relation to subjects from SG and SPDG. Blocks occurred more frequently in the two groups with stuttering (SG and SPDG) than in the group with PDG. Interjection occurred more frequently in subjects from SG than in PDG.

CONCLUSION

The PDG was the most differentiated in quantitative and qualitative terms in the three groups analyzed. The similarities and differences between the groups will assist the differential diagnosis and, consequently, will enable improved therapy. The presence of blocks represents an important marker for the diagnosis of stuttering.

Speech-language therapy stimulation in children with Down’s syndrome

ABSTRACT Objective: to analyze the contributions of speech-language therapy to the language development of children with Down syndrome (DS). Methods: eleven children with DS participated in the research. The children were between zero and five years of age, of both genders and attending a university extension project involving eight therapy sessions following stimulation guidelines. Children were evaluated before and after speech-language stimulation. The stimulation guidelines were based on the following aspects of language development: coordination of sensorimotor schema, constitution of object permanence, gestural/body imitation, imitation of utterances, deferred imitation and use of symbolic schema, communicative intent, receptive vocabulary and expressive vocabulary: words and phrases. The study was approved by the Research Ethics Committee of the institution. Data were analyzed quantitatively. Results: there were significant differences in the pre- and post-speech-language intervention in the following skills parameters: gestural/body imitation, imitation of utterances, deferred imitation and use of symbolic schema, communicative intent and receptive vocabulary. Conclusion: early stimulation of linguistic and cognitive aspects is important in the development of children with DS, as evidenced by the immediate development of speech-language skills in children after the intervention.