Banca de QUALIFICAÇÃO: RAYNE AUGUSTA DE MORAIS

Uma banca de QUALIFICAÇÃO de MESTRADO foi cadastrada pelo programa.
STUDENT : RAYNE AUGUSTA DE MORAIS
DATE: 23/09/2026
TIME: 09:00
LOCAL: Sala RUTE
TITLE:

Phonological short-term memory in typically developing pre-school children

KEY WORDS:

Speech-Language Pathology; child, preschool; child development; memory, short-term; memory and learning tests; language development.

PAGES: 56
BIG AREA: Ciências da Saúde
AREA: Fonoaudiologia
SUMMARY:

Language assessment in early childhood requires instruments with reliable psychometric properties,
suited to the sociocultural context and sensitive to the specific characteristics of language
development during this period. In addition to purely linguistic skills, cognitive aspects play a key
role in a child’s full development. Therefore, when assessing a pre-school child’s language skills, it
is necessary to consider the relationship between linguistic, cognitive and behavioural aspects. The
assessment of phonological short-term memory illustrates this point very well, as pre-school
children are in the process of developing their phonological skills and may exhibit phonological
processes that simplify adult speech patterns. Therefore, throughout early childhood, an error in a
content-free word-repetition task may not indicate a disorder, but may simply reflect their ongoing
phonological development. In view of this, the overall aim of this dissertation is to investigate the
performance of pre-school children with no reported language difficulties on two phonological
short-term memory tasks. This is a cross-sectional observational study involving children of both
sexes, aged between 4 years and 5 years and 11 months, approved under approval number
7,617,506. Data collection took place on an individual basis and in a single session within the
educational setting of two state schools. Initially, the participants’ language development was
assessed in terms of expressive vocabulary and phonology using the ABFW child language test.
Based on their performance in these tests, participants who exhibited a lower-than-expected
percentage of typical verbal responses for their age or who still exhibited phonological processes
that they should have outgrown were excluded from the sample. Two tests were used to assess
phonological short-term memory (PSTM): the phonological short-term memory test (Rodrigues and
Befi Lopes, 2013) and the pseudoword repetition test (Santos and Bueno, 2003). Both consist of 40
items and have reference values for this age group; however, the two tests differ in the structure of
their items (non-word or pseudoword, simple or complex syllabic structure, and the selection of
phonemes in these items). Our hypothesis is that the differences between the tests will enable us to
better distinguish between performance relating to phonology and that relating to phonological
short-term memory. Following data collection, each participant’s performance was transcribed and
scored in two different ways: firstly, by counting as correct only those utterances that corresponded
exactly to the target; and secondly, by counting as correct those utterances that involved
phonological changes expected for the participant’s age. The dissertation is divided into two
original articles; the aim of the first is to verify whether there is agreement between the performance
classifications of the two phonological short-term memory tests. The second article aims to analyse
which scoring criterion in these tests is most appropriate for distinguishing between phonological
performance and performance in phonological short-term memory in this age group.

COMMITTEE MEMBERS:
Presidente - 2321749 - ANA MANHANI CACERES
Externa ao Programa - 1246361 - LAURA CAROLINA LEMOS ARAGÃO - nullExterna à Instituição - MARINA LEITE PUGLISI - UNIFESP