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Objective: To develop and standardize a phonetic-phonological test (Teste Fonético-Fonológico-Avaliação da Linguagem Pré-Escolar, TFF-ALPE) for the assessment of European-Portuguese (EP) children’s articulation and phonological abilities. Patients and Methods: In order to standardize TFF-ALPE, 768 children aged 3;0–6;11 participated in this study. The standardization, validity and reliability of TFF-ALPE were analyzed. Results: TFF-ALPE presents strong cohesion and has strong inter- and intrajudge reliability. There was also a strong correlation between the TFF-ALPE data and those obtained in other studies. The content validity was demonstrated by the description of the test domain and the items that comprise TFF-ALPE. Conclusion: TFF-ALPE is a valid and reliable phonetic-phonological assessment instrument that speech-language pathologists can use with EP-speaking children.

Regular use of ICS is associated with an increased risk of having oropharyngeal colonization by S. pneumoniae in children with asthma.

Early onset of the disease, low paternal education, and low household income are independent risk factors for persistent childhood asthma. Regular consumption of fruits appears to be a protective factor against more severe asthma in children.

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This longitudinal study determined the effects of vocal training (VT) on respiratory kinematics and muscle activity during singing tasks. Four voice students, 3 females and 1 male, were recorded during singing tasks once a semester for 3 consecutive semesters. Respiratory kinematic measures included lung volume, rib cage (RCE) and abdominal excursions (ABE). Surface electromyographic measures included burst duration (BD) and peak amplitude (PA) of the pectoralis major, rectus abdominis and external oblique muscles. Descriptive statistics revealed that RCE and ABE increased from the 1st to the 2nd semester, but decreased from the 2nd to the 3rd semester of VT. Overall, mean BD decreased from the 1st to the 2nd semester and increased from the 2nd to the 3rd semester. Mean PA increased from the 1st to the 2nd semester and decreased from the 2nd to the 3rd semester of VT. RCE and muscle force generation of the above muscles increased as the demand level and the length of the phonatory tasks increased. Interpretation of the results suggests that the respiratory system is highly responsive to VT, after only 3 semesters of training.

ALPE -Language Test (Teste de Linguagem-ALPE, TL-ALPE) is a standardized receptive and expressive European-Portuguese (EP) language assessment instrument of to be used in pre-school age children in order to assess their semantic, morphosyntax and metalinguistic skills development.This paper describes the psychometric properties of TL-ALPE, i.e., -reliability (internal consistency, inter-and intra-judge reliability) and validity (content and construct validity). In order to standardize the TL-ALPE, 817 children (402 females and 415 males) with ages between [3;0-5;12[ were assessed across Portuguese mainland and islands. The TL-ALPE was applied by 42 trained and fully licensed SLPs. Preliminary results provided normative data about the EP speaking children: standardized norms (mean, standard deviation and percentile ranks).Results indicate that TL-ALPE presented a strong cohesion among the items analysed, a strong equivalence between the analysis performed by independent judges, and also a strong stability in the analysis performed by the same judge. Also seems to exist a strong correlation between TL-ALPE's data and those obtained in other EP studies (construct validity). TL-ALPE adequately measured the child's receptive and expressive language skills (content validity). In conclusion, the analysis of the preliminary results showed that TL-ALPE was a valid and reliable assessment instrument and can be used for early identification of oral language disorders. Keywords