The objective of this work was to appraise the knowledge and experience of Rio de Janeiro's speech-language pathologist and audiologist about child abuse and neglect. We sent a survey form by mail to a sample of professionals registered at the Speech-Language Pathologist and Audiologist Local Council. The forms were sent twice to each professional. Five hundred forms were sent and 224 professionals responded, of which 71% worked in private clinics. Among these professionals, 25.8% had had child clients who suffered some type of abuse. Only 12.9% of interviewees worked in public health services and almost half of them (43.8%) had cared of clients who suffered abuse and/or neglect. Even though 88.9% of respondents who had treated abused children claimed that they would report abuse cases to the Conselho Tutelar, the Brazilian child protective service agency, but only four actually reported. These results suggest that, on the top of the lack of information about the subject, the fact that most speech-language pathologists usually work in private clinics make it difficult for them to report abuses cases to the authorities, as they do not have institutional support.
Speech-language pathology; Child abuse; Children; Adolescents
