[Auditory processing in children with cerebrovascular disease].

Background: cerebrovascular disease (CVD) during childhood is a rare condition; its short, medium and long-term characteristics deserve further investigation. The application of behavioral techniques may improve clinical characterization, thus rendering more efficient therapeutic planning and control.

Aim: to describe the audiological manifestations in a child with CVD in two distinct moments of clinical follow-up.

Method: the child, with a confirmed diagnosis of a single and unilateral episode of CVD, presenting satisfactory cognition and language skills, was submitted to a battery of conventional and auditory processing tests, which included a simplified evaluation as well as monotic, dichotic, and temporal processing tests. The obtained data was paired with those of a normal right-handed child, of the same gender, age and socio-cultural level.

Results: results indicate impairments in auditory memory as well as in selective attention during binaural separation and integration tasks for verbal and non-verbal stimuli.

Conclusion: clinical development, although favorable, was below the average expected for the same age when compared to the control. The prospective evaluation of a child with DCV permitted the characterization of the auditory behavior, the definition of its parameters as well as the development of the audiological characteristics.