[Analysis of the speech and language national scientific production on written language]

National scientific production on written language in the scope of the Speech-Language and Hearing Sciences.

To analyze part of the production of the Brazilian Speech-Language and Hearing Sciences on written language, between the years of 1980 and 2004, considering the following: publication period; distribution per period; types of publication; themes; and authorship.

This research was developed through the selection and analysis of documents, such as; books, book chapters, and scientific articles published in seven national journals of the Speech-Language and Hearing Sciences (1980 to 2004).

Scientific written production found in the studied period consisted of 236 publications. From this total, 3.39% were published during the 80s; 44.1% during the 90s; and 52.5% during the period of 2000-2004. Regarding the type of publication, 18.5% of the scientific production was published as books, 39% as book chapters and 42.5% as research articles. Considering authorship, 42 authors (76.36%) are entailed to institutions of higher education, either as professors or as students, with a higher concentration in the State of São Paulo and a lower concentration in the State of Rio de Janeiro. Overall, the analyzed written productions considered five themes: "Written language disorders" (52%); "Written language appropriation process" (23.5%); "Written language and deafness" (8.90%); "Written language and neurological disorders" (8.22%) and "Written language and school" (7.53%).

This research recovered part of the scientific production on written language in the field of the Speech-Language and Hearing Sciences. The increase of publications on this theme suggests an improvement of the researches in the field of the Speech-Language and Hearing Sciences and, therefore, points to the importance of studies that analyze trends in our scientific production.