Writing and reading disorder in Silver-Russell syndrome

Abstract

Silver-Russell syndrome consists in a rare genetic disorder. Its classical phenotype includes intra-uterus and post-natal growth delay, hemi-hypertrophy, lateral asymmetry, members’ asymmetry, clinodactyly of the fifth finger and a variable number of facial dimorphisms, such as craniofacial disproportion and triangular face. The description of its speech therapeutic manifestations, besides being rare, emphasizes the presence of craniofacial and oral aspects instead of reading and writing involvement. The aim of this study was to describe the case of a 14 years old girl with Silver-Russell syndrome, who, after being submitted to Illinois Psycholinguistic Abilities Test; Phonological Consciousness Proof; Reading and Writing Test and School Performance Assessment, had the speech therapeutic diagnosis of Reading and Writing Disorder (RWD). The evaluation data evidenced the presence of impairment in the writing modality, determined mostly by phonologic processing deficit. Based in these findings, the evaluation of phonologic memories abilities, phonologic consciousness and mental lexical access are suggested to be applied in children with Silver-Russell syndrome, during the pre-school period, aiming at preventing the installment and aggravation of writing disorders