title: Hearing discrimination abilities in children with phonological disorders.
abstract: BACKGROUND
  hearing discrimination abilities in children with phonological disorders.
  
  
  OBJECTIVE
  to investigate the ability of hearing discrimination in children with Phonological Disorders who received or were receiving phonological treatment; to verify if the altered phonemes were the same as those which were not discriminated in the Picture Test for Hearing Discrimination (adapted for Portuguese language by Mota et al 2000, based on "The Boston University Speech Sound Discrimination Picture Test") and to verify if the ability of hearing discrimination is related to gender, age and the phonological disorder severity level.
  
  
  METHODS
  41 children, 16 females and 25 males, with ages ranging between 4 and 8.2 years were evaluated. Data used for analyses were taken from the results obtained in the Picture Test for Hearing Discrimination and from the Phonological Assessment.
  
  
  RESULTS
  no statistically significant difference between genders Statistical analyses also indicated that the performance in the Picture Test for Hearing Discrimination was correlated to age. The more severe the phonological disorder the higher the number of phonemes that were not discriminated.
  
  
  CONCLUSIONS
  hearing discrimination inability can be a causative or aggravating factor of phonological disorder, although this rule does not apply to all cases.
authors.affiliation: Fonoaudióloga, Universidade Federal de Santa Maria (UFSM), Brazil. fgabeatriz@yahoo.com.br
authors.forename: Beatriz dos
authors.initials: Bd
authors.lastname: Santos-Carvalho
authors.forename: Helena Bolli
authors.initials: HB
authors.lastname: Mota
authors.forename: Márcia
authors.initials: M
authors.lastname: Keske-Soares
authors.forename: Tiago Mendonça
authors.initials: TM
authors.lastname: Attoni
mesh_terms: D000367:Age Factors; D002648:Child; D002675:Child, Preschool; D005260:Female; D006311:Hearing Disorders / Q000150:complications* / Q000503:physiopathology; D006801:Humans; D008297:Male; D010700:Phonetics; D012720:Severity of Illness Index; D013063:Speech Discrimination Tests; D013064:Speech Disorders / Q000209:etiology* / Q000503:physiopathology; D013067:Speech Perception / Q000502:physiology*; D018709:Statistics, Nonparametric