PURPOSE: To determine the average values of phrase in children with phonological disorder, and to compare it with benchmark values proposed in literature. METHODS: The sample consisted of 16 children with phonological disorders, seven females and nine males, with ages between 4 years and 5 months and 7 years and 7 months. After confirmation of the diagnosis of developmental phonological disorder, subjects were submitted to language assessment through the investigation of the average values of phrase, as proposed in literature. In this assessment, using three different modalities of language enunciation, we collected the first five sentences spoken by each child, which were scored according to their complexity, by giving different weights to syntactic and lexical elements of each sentence. RESULTS: When compared with the reference children, children with developmental phonological disorder presented lower values in all variables analyzed, and this difference was significant. The same was observed when the group was divided into age groups, however, in the age groups of 5 to 7 years some modalities analyzed showed no differences. CONCLUSION: According to this study, children diagnosed with developmental phonological disorder may present losses in other areas of language, such as semantics and morphosyntax, which are more evident in the early age groups.
Speech disorders; Speech-language pathology; Child language; Child, preschool; Child; Semantics
