PURPOSE: To verify the influence of the variable gender in children's performance on phonemic awareness tasks. METHODS: The sample consisted of 36 second grade students from an elementary school: 18 girls and 18 boys. All of them were submitted to hearing screening, speech-language assessment and evaluation of phonemic awareness abilities. RESULTS: In general, the statistical analysis did not reveal significant differences between genders. However, qualitatively, it was observed that girls were more successful than boys in all segmentation and phonemic synthesis tasks, which impact the analysis of smaller elements. CONCLUSIONS: Although no statistically significant differences were found between genders, it was verified that girls presented better phonemic awareness abilities.
Language; Students; Child; Speech therapy; Sex distribution
