Transtornos de linguagem oral em crianças pré-escolares com epilepsia: screening fonoaudiológico**** Oral language disorders in preschool children with epilepsy: a speech-language screening

Abstract Background: oral language disorder and epilepsy in childhood. Aim: to verify the occurrence of orallanguage disorders in epileptic preschoolers attended at the Child Neurology Section of a universityhospital. Method: a prospective study with 30 epileptic children who were submitted to an oral speech-language evaluation. Inclusion criteria: explicit diagnosis of epilepsy according to the ILAE (2005); agesbetween 3 to 6 years; normal neurological standard and neuropsychomotor development. Exclusioncriteria: dubious diagnosis of epilepsy; altered neurological standard and neuropsychomotor development;children with associated pediatric disorders. Analyzed variables were: gender, age of first seizure, types ofseizure and treatment regime. OR (odds ration) was determined, with a significance level of < 0.05.Results: 18 (60%) children with epilepsy presented oral language disorders and 12 (40%) presentednormal language development. Regarding the observed disorders, 12 (67%) presented language disorderand 6 (33%) presented phonological disorder. Male children (OR = 2.03) and those with partial seizure(OR = 2.41) demonstrated to have a higher risk for oral language disorders. Conclusion: the resultsindicate that preschoolers with epilepsy present a predominance of oral language development delay, andthat the male gender and partial seizure are risk factors for this age group.