PURPOSE: to obtain reference values for behavioral observation protocol on the development of communicative and symbolic schemes of children with typical language development. METHOD: it has been evaluated 44 children between 24 and 47 months, both genders, selected from three different primary schools using Denver II development screening methodology and also a questionnaire submitted to the parents. All children were filmed 30 minutes interacting with the researcher and playing with toys. The recordings were analyzed through behavioral observation protocol. The values that compose the statistical analysis are average, median, maximums and minimums. It has been used the T Student test to compare the ages. RESULTS: in regards to communication abilities, children had shown an evolution with age (average of three and two years old respectively 58.12 and 51.44), even though no significant statistical change was found in the range of ages compared (p=0.486). In regards do verbal comprehension, children aged three presented better results than children aged two (averages: 59.41 and 50.70 respectively) with statistical significance variance (p=0.0000020). In cognitive development, three years old children presented better performance compared to two years old children (averages: 44.53 and 31.96 respectively), significant difference between results (p=0.00364) showing that children evolve in the hierarchy of symbolism. CONCLUSION: the values obtained in PROC combined qualitative and quantitative analysis, contributing, besides diagnosis, to a more objective therapeutic process evaluation.
Protocols; Observation; Behavior; Evaluation; Child Language; Language Tests
