Sociocultural factors in Brazilian neuropsycholinguistic studies

The history of Brazilian neuropsychology is traced at different neuropsycholinguistic stages with a focus on the importance of sociocultural factors. We first focus on language disorders, the sequelae of injuries in the left hemisphere, and neuropsychology restricted to the medical field in Europe, the United States, and Brazil. In the middle of the last century, attention to the interdisciplinary importance of studies on the right hemisphere began. Studies consequently emerged on the individual variability of brain function with both biological and cultural origins. Based on this approach, Brazilian studies on aphasic children and illiterate aphasic persons were disseminated internationally. In the 1970s, cognitive neuropsychology began in England, highlighting dysfunctions in reading and writing processes. The characteristics of writing systems within each language became relevant for the manifestations of acquired dyslexia. Brazilian studies showed deficits in Portuguese and Japanese writing caused by brain lesions. During this scientific journey, scientific societies and postgraduate programs in Brazil were created to facilitate exchanges and communication among young researchers. By the end of the last century and in the early 2000s, the growth of the neuropsychology of aging raised awareness of the complexity of sociocultural factors, not only on language research but also according to the level of education, frequency of reading and writing habits, school type, and interactions among these factors and biological factors, especially between the level of education and age. From this historical standpoint, we outline future directions and perspectives in the field of Brazilian neuropsychology.

Macrossomia e habilidades neuropsicolingüísticas / Macrosomia and neuropsycholinguistic skills

Objetivo: Caracterizar o desempenho nos aspectos cognitivo, perceptivo-motor, comportamental e lingüístico de nove indivíduos, sete do gênero feminino e dois do gênero masculino, com sinais clínicos da síndrome de Sotos (SS) e faixa etária entre seis a dezoito anos. Métodos: A avaliação foi realizada por meio da escala Wechsler de inteligência, do teste viso-motor Bender, de um protocolo para avaliação de comportamento e avaliação fonoaudiológica. Resultados: Os resultados mostraram QI execução mais comprometido em cinco casos e QI verbal em quatro, pela ausência ou ininteligibilidade de fala; acometimento das praxias viso-motoras e viso-construtivas, da organização viso-espacial no plano gráfico, dos processos atencionais e alterações de linguagem nos aspectos sintático, semântico, fonológico e pragmático, memória auditiva e visual. Conclusão: Importantes alterações neuropsicológicas podem fazer parte do fenótipo da SS e, desta forma, a divulgação dos achados desta síndrome pode contribuir para entender as dificuldades encontradas em indivíduos com crescimento excessivo diagnosticadas com esta condição.

Objective: Caracterize the intelectual, perceptive-motor, language/learning performance and behavior of nine subjects, six female and two male, with Sotos syndrome at six-eighteen years old. Methods: Data collection included Wechsler Inteligence Scale, Bender test, behavior protocol and speech/language assessement. Results: Results showed the non-verbal IQ was the most compromising among the five, and in four of the cases, it was not possible to obtain a verbal IQ due to the absence or unintelligibility of speech, deficits relative to the visual-motor, visual-constructive, visual-space organization on the graphic plane attention process, language (syntactical, semantic, phonologic, and pragmatic aspects), visual memory and hearing praxes. Conclusions: Important neuropsychological alterations can be part of SS phenotype and, in such a way the spreading of the findings of this syndrome can contribute to understand the difficulties found in patients with overgrowth syndrome.