Perfil linguístico na Síndrome de Down associada a apraxia de fala: estudo de caso

Abstract

The specificities of the person with Down syndrome (DS) can generate some particularities to the profile of development and performance of language skills, which added to speech disorders, such as apraxia of speech, can limit communication and alter the learning process of speech. written language, configuring a strictly particular character. Therefore, knowing the profile of language, speech and other fundamental skills in the learning process and establishing the correlations between all of them in order to better understand how the process of learning the written language occurs in the presence of apraxia of speech in Down syndrome, the general objective is: to analyze the linguistic and speech performance of a young person with Down syndrome. It is a descriptive, experimental and quali-quantitative research that is configured as a case study of a young man with Down syndrome, male, aged 21 years old, attending the 3rd grade of high school in the network public education system in the Youth and Adult Education (EJA) system. The young man was submitted to a battery of complete assessment of oral, written, speech and central auditory processing skills, in order to investigate their development and their correlations in linguistic performance, tracing a profile of these skills in this subject. The results indicated particularities in the linguistic development such as good semantic development, greater difficulties in producing statements and oral narrative, low performance in morphosyntax; speech disorders; good articulatory awareness, poor working memory performance, measurable FC skills and development and improvement of reading and writing skills, consolidating literacy. The correlations between the skills analyzed suggest that, as in typical development, oral language skills, and skills considered to be predictors of learning, also influence the development of writing in DS. Despite the specificities found in the subject of this study, the results show that it is possible for people with DS to develop written language skills, and that even after adolescence, their language skills in all their dimensions, are in constant development.