title: Social cognitive performance and different communication settings in groups of children with different disorders.
abstract: OBJECTIVE
  To investigate the social-cognitive performance of children with diagnostics of autism spectrum disorder (ASD), mental disability (MD) and hearing impairment (HI) in two different communicative situations.
  
  
  METHODS
  Participated in this study 30 children ages between 3 and 12 years starting speech language therapy processes, divided in three groups: Group 1 - ten children with diagnoses included in the Autism Spectrum Disorders (ASD); Group 2: ten children diagnosed with mental disabilities (MD) and Group 3: ten children diagnosed with hearing impairment (HI). The subjects were assessed in two different communicative situations (group and individual therapy situation) for 12 months.
  
  
  RESULTS
  Data regarding the performance of the three groups in the two situations show that G3 had better absolute performance when compared with other groups, with the variable symbolic play as an important differential criterion for the three groups.
  
  
  CONCLUSIONS
  We conclude that the social-cognitive performance can be used as an auxiliary tool for intervention, helping the identification of variables that could interfere in the communicative performance.
authors: Universidade Estadual da Bahia, Salvador, BA, Brazil. cardoso_c@uol.com.br
authors: Carla
authors: C
authors: Cardoso
authors: Juliana Fernandes Lomba da
authors: JF
authors: Rocha
authors: Catarina Santana
authors: CS
authors: Moreira
authors: Amanda Luz
authors: AL
authors: Pinto
mesh_terms: D002648:Child; D002659:Child Development Disorders, Pervasive / Q000503:physiopathology* / Q000523:psychology; D002675:Child, Preschool; D003071:Cognition / Q000502:physiology*; D003142:Communication; D005260:Female; D006311:Hearing Disorders / Q000503:physiopathology* / Q000523:psychology; D006801:Humans; D007398:Interpersonal Relations; D008297:Male; D001523:Mental Disorders / Q000503:physiopathology / Q000523:psychology; D019989:Persons with Intellectual Disabilities / Q000523:psychology; D012919:Social Behavior