[Development skills in children with congenital hypothyroidism: focus on communication]

congenital hypothyroidism may cause alterations in the child's global development.

to outline the development profile in children with congenital hypothyroidism, focusing on communication, and to verify the influence of clinical history on the outlined profile.

35 children, with ages between 2 to 36 months, with congenital hypothyroidism detected by neonatal screening, and who were in treatment for at least one month using hormonal replacement were assessed using the Early Language Milestone Scale (ELM) and the Portage Operation Inventory (POI). The clinical history was obtained in an interview with the family and from the analysis of medical records.

in the ELM, eleven children presented a poor performance in the expressive auditory function, two in the visual function and one in the receptive auditory function. In the POI, seven children presented a poor performance in the language section, five in cognitive section, four in the motor and social sections and three in the self-care section. There was no correlation between the results obtained in the assessments and the clinical history.

most of the children presented adequate performances in the evaluated skills. For the children with altered performance, larger deficits were observed in the language section, for the expressive aspects, and in the cognitive section. The influence of clinical history on the development profile was not confirmed. However, a tendency for an adequate performance was observed in those children who underwent neonatal screening, received an early diagnosis and treatment for the congenital hypothyroidism and who received higher doses of thyroxine at the beginning of treatment. The importance of a speech-language follow-up for communication development in this population is highlighted.