Caracterização de aspectos da fala e da linguagem oral em pais de autistas

Abstract

Autism is a neuropsychiatric disorder that develops during early childhood and is part of a group of psychiatric conditions denominated Pervasive Developmental Disorders (PDD). Diagnosis is clinical, mainly based on the presence of social interaction disorders, restricted interests, stereotyped behavior and communication disorders. Communication is an important aspect of the disease as it is invariably present in autism. Psychiatric alterations of speech and language are commoner in autistic families, thus suggesting a broad phenotype and possible genetic anticipation in autism. This study aimed at analyzing the oral language and the speech of parents of autistic and control individuals and to correlate the results to a possible broad phenotype and genetic anticipation in autism. Eighteen couples, mothers and fathers, of autistic patients were investigated. A control group was composed of nine men and nine women, paired by age and education. The participants were submitted to a clinical evaluation of speech and language and to the Test of Language Competence (TLC-E). The results showed a poorer performance by the parents of autistic patients when compared to the controls in respect to language but not to speech. The presence of alterations in oral language in couples with autistic children supports the hypothesis of a broad phenotype of this disease and of the existence of genetic anticipation in autism.