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Oral language, phonological processing, and visuospatial memory in children with a history of mild malnutrition in early childhood

ABSTRACT Purpose To investigate the performance of children with a history of mild malnutrition in early childhood in tasks that assess oral language, phonological processing and visuospatial memory. Methods Thirty-six children participated (mean age 5.3 years; standard deviation = 0.57), with 9 children diagnosed with malnutrition between 0 and 3 years old (G1); 9 eutrophic and with language delay (G2) and; 18 eutrophic children with typical language development (G3). All were submitted to hearing screening procedures, diagnosis of current nutritional status and tests of language, phonological processing and working memory - visuospatial sketch. Statistical analysis was performed using the Test of Equality of Proportions and the Kruskal-Wallis test (α = 5%). Results Differences were observed in the performance in receptive and expressive language tasks of G1 and G2 in relation to G3. Performance on working memory tasks - visuospatial sketch was significantly different between G1 and G3 and G2 and G3. There was no difference between the groups concerning expressivevocabulary, phonological aspect, phonological awareness and phonological working memory. Conclusion Children with a history of mild malnutrition during the critical period of brain development may have language impairments, especially in the receptive area, and restricted performance in other cognitive skills, such as working memory - visuospatial sketch.