BACKGROUND: meningomyelocele and consequences on the development of psycholinguistic and school abilities. PROCEDURES: the purpose of this study was to describe and reflect on the psycholinguistic and school performance of siblings with low lumbar myelomeningocele. The study included a boy, 14 years and 5 months (P1) and his sister, 6 years and 6 months (P2). The procedures consisted of an interview, Communicative Behavior Observation (CBO), Vocabulary Test Peabody Picture - PPVT, Illinois Test of Psycholinguistic Abilities (ITPA), Phonological Abilities Profile (PAP), School Performance Test (SPT), and recognition of letters and numbers (RLN). The analysis was descriptive and respecting the manuals of the instruments. RESULTS: the oral language has no obvious change. In ITPA and PAP, we found that P1 and P2 had difficulty in memory skills, closure listening, verbal, combination of sounds and phonological awareness. P1 still had difficulty in the ability of visual reception and P2 in the abilities of auditory association and closure grammar. Both children showed difficulties in the learning activities. CONCLUSION: the study subjects performed quite well in communicative skills, oral language and receptive vocabulary without obvious changes. P1 and P2 had changes in psycholinguistic skills and performance of activities involving reading, writing and arithmetic. Difficulties cause major impact on academic activities, demonstrating the vulnerability of the brain in the system supporting learning activity.
Meningomyelocele; Employee Performance Appraisal; Language Development; Learning