[Linguistic and narrative variables in oral and written language disorder]

A study of linguistic and narrative variables in oral and written language disorder.

To characterize the linguistic and narrative productivity, oral and written productions, of scholars with oral and written language disorder.

Oral and written narrative productions of 30 scholars from public schools (male and female aged 7 to 13 years) were compared. These individuals were grouped as follows: Research group (15) and Control group (15). Samples of oral and written narratives of the story "Little Red Riding Hood" were collected. Comparative analyses were made between the oral and written productions--intragroup (t Student Test and Wilcoxon Test) and intergroup (t Student Test and Mann Whitney Test)--according to the following linguistic variables: total number of words, of nouns, of verbs, of verbs in the past tense, of adjectives, of time markers, of complete statements, of incomplete statements and of reported episodes. Narratives were also compared according to the presence of episodes.

Differences were observed between the oral and written productions for the research group regarding the total number of produced words (p = 0.018) and the total number of produced verbs (p = 0.030). The use of time markers such as before (p < 0.001), then (p < 0.001), when (p < 0.001), and after (p = 0.003), and the number of reported episodes, also indicated statistical differences when comparing the groups.

The following variables characterized the research group: longer extensions of oral lexical productivity when comparing these to the written productions, less frequent use of time markers and fewer number of certain episodes in the written modality.