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Phonological characteristics of children with phonological disorder with and without otitis media history

PURPOSE: To verify the number of types, the total occurrence and the mean of phonological processes in phonologically disordered children with and without otitis background. METHODS: The subjects were 44 children diagnosed with phonological disorder, half of them with otitis background and half without any history of otitis, from the Laboratory of Phonology of the Speech and Language Pathology Course of the Medical School USP-SP. The imitation and picture naming tests (Wertzner, 2000) were carried out in order to analyze the phonological processes. RESULTS: In the otitis group, the most occurring phonological process in the imitation test was the fricative devoicing and in the picture naming, the liquid simplification. In the group of children with no otitis background, the cluster reduction and the fricative devoicing were the most used processes in the picture naming and in the imitation tests, respectively. Only the cluster reduction in the picture naming test had differences between both groups. There was no statistical difference regarding the mean of phonological processes types. CONCLUSION: Although some children with phonological disorder might present otitis media, the analysis did not allow the identification of a linguistic marker that can differentiate children with and without otitis background.

Language development disorders; Otitis media; Child development; Child language


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