Cognitive-linguistic performance of schoolchildren in the literacy cycle in the public school context: universal screening

Abstract

ABSTRACT Objective: to characterize the linguistic-cognitive performance of schoolchildren in the literacy cycle, in order to identify children at risk for learning disorders in the public school context. Methods: this study involved 88 children, aged 6 to 8 years, enrolled in the first, second and third year of elementary education I, from two schools in the city of Recife, Pernambuco, Brazil. The procedure used was the Cognitive-Linguistic Skills Evaluation Protocol, which has collective and individual versions, both being applied. The analysis of the groups was performed through the statistical non-parametric Kruskal-Wallis test with p <0.05. Results: all students were submitted to the individual version for presenting poor performance in the collective version of the protocol. Thus, the application of the collective version was not sufficient to identify children at risk for learning disorders, thus, the indication of the individual assessment. In the individual version, students from the 1st year showed a lower performance in most of the subtests that make up the instrument, whereas those from the 2nd and 3rd years had an average performance, which also deserves attention, according to the instrument of evaluation. These results, below the one expected for the age and school year, may be a consequence of poor learning opportunities within and outside school. There were also significant differences as a function of the schooling advance, revealing that the cognitive-linguistic skills, precursors of the reading and writing learning process, are only having a greater leap of development at the end of the literacy cycle, in the third year, which reveals a significant delay in terms of learning. Conclusion: the low performance observed in cognitive-linguistic abilities in schoolchildren hinders the early identification of children at risk for learning disorders and questions the quality of educational opportunities experienced by the students inside and outside the public school. Other factors, such as regional differences in language and linguistic context, need to be considered in the interpretation of tests that evaluate cognitive-linguistic abilities.