PURPOSE: to determine the prevalence of speech disorders in children attending the first grade of primary education in public schools in Montes Claros - MG in 2010, through a screening test, in order to check the screening results with the sex variable and on the main phonological processes exhibited by the surveyed children. METHOD: we used an adopted validated instrument for this purpose (Screening Test for Speech Articulation Disorders). RESULTS: a total of 404 children with a mean age of six years and five months and 52,0% were female. The prevalence of phonological disorders was 33,7%. It was possible to observe the presence of lisp in 8.4% of children. Of the 137 students with any changes in the phonological processes, the most used were: replacement /λ/ with /i/ or /y/, /l/ a /r/, /z/ with /s/ and omission of /l/ and /r/.. The chance of phonological disorder in male children is 2,53 times that in female child. The average time spent during the test was 1 minute and 18 seconds. CONCLUSION: we found a high prevalence of phonological disorder demanding not only effective therapeutic intervention program, but also preventive measures. Prevalence of children with speech disorders is in agreement with other studies... Actions of the professional speech therapist in partnership with educators help to facilitate learning as a preventive measure...
Prevalence; Articulation Disorders; Screening Programs; Speech, Language and Hearing Sciences
