Psycholinguistic and scholastic abilities in children with myelomeningocele.

PURPOSE To describe the performance of individuals with myelomeningocele regarding psycholinguistic and scholastic abilities. METHODS Participants were five individuals with myelomeningocele and lumbar sacral abnormalities, and chronological age between 9 years and 10 months and 11 years and 7 months (Group 1 - G1); five subjects with typical development (Group 2 - G2), matched to G1 for age, gender, and educational level. The evaluation consisted of interview with parents/caregivers, and application of the following tests: Illinois Test of Psycholinguistic Abilities (ITPA); School Performance Test; Speed Reading Test; and Rapid Automatized Naming Test. RESULTS The between-groups comparison in the ITPA subtests showed that the maximum values obtained by G1 corresponded approximately to the minimum values obtained by G2, confirming the difference between the groups, except for the auditory closure subtest. In the Scholastic Performance Test, significant alterations were observed on the performance of G1 in all tasks. In the Speed Reading and Rapid Automatized Naming tests, individuals in G1 also presented considerable deficits, making more mistakes and spending more time than G2 to perform the same tasks. CONCLUSION Individuals with myelomeningocele present deficits in psycholinguistic abilities, school performance, reading speed, and rapid automatized naming.