Avaliação do desenvolvimento cognitivo e de linguagem em pré-escolares nascidos prematuros

Abstract

The early identification of language development impairments in children born prematurely favors intervention in the ideal period and minimizes the impacts of a language disorder on the child's life. However, such identification requires instruments capable of assessing the child's communicative skills, including the correction of age in the case of premature births. In Brazil, communication and language assessment instruments are still scarce, especially in the early years of early childhood. In this dissertation, two studies were conducted, both approved by the research ethics committee (CAAE: 97759718.4.0000.5292). The first study aimed to adapt cross-culturally for Brazilian Portuguese a specific instrument for premature births, which is based on the report of parents, Parent Report of Children’s Abilities-Revised (PARCA-R). This instrument went through the entire process of translation and backtranslation, and was applied in two stages with parents or guardians of children in the second year of life. The second study aimed to compare the performance at two years of life of children born premature and at term in the receptive and expressive subscales of language of Bayley III, considered the gold standard for assessing child development and recently translated and commercialized in Brazil. Based on its results, this dissertation contributes to fill the gap related to language assessment in the first years of life.