Profile of communicative and cognitive shills of children with heart disease undergoing heart surgery

Abstract

Objective: To identify the level of communicative skills of children with congenital heart disease submitted to cardiac surgeries, corrective or not, through the behavioral observation protocol – PROC. Methods: This is an analytical observational study with a quantitative approach. The research participants were 15 children with congenital heart disease, who had undergone some type of cardiac surgery, who were in the age group of 24 to 48 months, and were hospitalized in the pediatric unit or in outpatient medical care at the Hospital do Coração de Messejana Dr. Carlos Alberto Studart Gomes, excluding those who had any associated syndrome. For data collection, two instruments were used, the Behavioral Observation Protocol (PROC), already validated, and a questionnaire to outline the sociodemographic profile of the child and his/her guardian. Descriptive statistics were adopted for data analysis. Results: Children with congenital heart disease submitted to surgical procedures have alterations in the language acquisition process, most of them in the initial sensorimotor phase. Conclusion: The present study was promising as it allowed us to understand and identify the delays in linguistic development caused by heart disease, facilitating the referral for early intervention, in order to detect, prevent or minimize the impairment of linguistic aspects.