Desenvolvimento da linguagem oral em crianças com baixa visão de dois a cinco anos

Abstract

Objective: To investigate the development of oral language in children with low vision. Method: The oral language of 20 children with diagnosed low vision, aged between two and five years old, was evaluated by an adapted protocol (ANNEX A). None presented neurologi-cal and/or hearing impairments. The visual acuity collected in patient forms was the one per-formed up to a maximum of six months before the speech and hearing evaluation. Data were statistically analyzed in a qualitative and quantitative manner by Fisher exact test. Results: Variables that showed association, with at least a category of language items, were visual acuity and age at diagnosis. Children with higher visual impairment (severe/deep) pre-sented the worst performance in language if compared to the group with mild/moderate low vision. There was a better performance in reception than in emission, that is, it is difficult for the child to correctly use oral verbal language without previously understanding what the speaker wants to transmit. Findings also suggest that, if the therapeutic intervention does not immediately occur after diagnosis, risks to develop language are higher if diagnosis is early performed. Furthermore, children with diagnosed prematurity retinopathy were the ones pre-senting worst performance in language. Conclusions: The work showed encouraging results referring to language development in children presenting low vision not associated to other risk factor for development as brain pa-ralysis, mental retardation, and/or hearing impairment.