To develop and standardize a phonetic-phonological test (Teste Fonético-Fonológico-Avaliação da Linguagem Pré-Escolar, TFF-ALPE) for the assessment of European-Portuguese (EP) children's articulation and phonological abilities. In order to standardize TFF-ALPE, 768 children aged 3;0-6;11 participated in this study. The standardization, validity and reliability of TFF-ALPE were analyzed. TFF-ALPE presents strong cohesion and has strong inter- and intrajudge reliability. There was also a strong correlation between the TFF-ALPE data and those obtained in other studies. The content validity was demonstrated by the description of the test domain and the items that comprise TFF-ALPE. TFF-ALPE is a valid and reliable phonetic-phonological assessment instrument that speech-language pathologists can use with EP-speaking children.

There is no standard phonetically balanced short passage for Portuguese research and clinical practice. This paper presents results of a novel analysis of ‘The North Wind and the Sun’ (NWS) passage that aims to determine if it is phonetically balanced for European Portuguese (EP) and Brazilian Portuguese (BP), based on new transcriptions resulting from algorithms developed for grapheme–phone transcription in these two varieties of Portuguese. These algorithms (based on standard EP and São Paulo BP varieties) are the same as those used to collect the frequency data, which is central to determining if a text is phonetically balanced. Results showed that neither transcription violates phonotactic rules, i.e. permissible combinations of speech sounds. The NWS is not phonetically balanced for BP if the phonemes are considered individually but is evenly distributed in terms of manner of articulation. The EP version of the NWS passage is a phonetically balanced text for EP.

Purpose: Children with Autism Spectrum Disorder (ASD) and Developmental Language Disorder (DLD) frequently face pragmatic impairments which may result in learning, socialization, and mental health difficulties, therefore early intervention is crucial. In Portugal, the Pragmatic Intervention Programme (PICP) has been recently developed and validated, but its effects are unknown. This study aims to determine the effects of the PICP on preschool-age children with ASD or DLD with pragmatic impairments. Methods: A non-randomized controlled trial has been conducted. The children (n = 20) were assigned to the intervention (n = 11) or the control group (waiting list) (n = 9). Each child attended 24 PICP-based intervention sessions provided by a Speech and Language Therapist in kindergarten. The primary outcome measure was a Goal Attainment Scale (GAS) rated by parents and kindergarten teachers. Secondary outcomes include parent/teacher-reported communication skills (Escala de Avaliação de Competências Comunicativas) and an assessment of the child’s general language ability (Teste de Linguagem—Avaliação da Linguagem Pré-Escolar). Results: GAS results show that all the children in the intervention group made progress. Statistically significant differences between pre- and post-intervention assessments were found for all secondary outcomes. Conclusions: The main findings suggest that the PICP improves language in preschool-age children with ASD and DLD with pragmatic difficulties. Further research is needed to analyse the effects of the PICP for each neurodevelopmental disorder individually. These results are crucial and will contribute to future research and evidence-based practice.

Background/Aims: To design and standardize the Preschool Language Test (Teste de Linguagem-Avaliação da Linguagem Pré-Escolar, TL-ALPE) which assesses European Portuguese (EP)-speaking children's receptive and expressive language abilities. Methods: To standardize TL-ALPE, data was collected on 817 EP-speaking children aged 3 years and 0 months to 5 years and 12 months. The standardization, validity and reliability procedures of TL-ALPE followed the standard recommendations. Results: TL-ALPE presented a strong cohesion (internal consistency, >80%) and strong inter- and intrajudge reliability (>90%). The content validity was verified by the description of instrument domain and the items. The construct validity of TL-ALPE was confirmed by the proportional increase in mean score values with age for both receptive and expressive abilities. The results of concurrent validity revealed strong correlations between TL-ALPE and other EP preschool language tests for expressive and total language scores. Conclusion: TL-ALPE is a valid and reliable instrument to assess language skills of EP-speaking preschool children. © 2014 S. Karger AG, Basel