The Portuguese Journal of Speech Therapy (RPTF) awarded the Scientific Merit Award 2021 to researchers Marisa Lousada and Tatiana Pereira, from CINTESIS – Center for Health Technology and Services Research/School of Health of the University of Aveiro (ESSUA).
The researchers are co-authors of a scientific paper describing the development, content validation, and acceptability pilot study of the Pragmatic Skills Intervention Program.
According to the awardees, the program aims to “improve the language skills of children who manifest changes in pragmatics.” The study analyzes the effectiveness in children with Developmental Language Disorder (DLD) and children with Autism Spectrum Disorder, with the collaboration of public and private institutions, as well as Private Institutions of Social Solidarity (IPSS) of Aveiro.
The project is funded by the Portuguese Foundation for Science and Technology (FCT) in the scope of a Ph.D. grant. In addition to Tatiana Pereira and Marisa Lousada, Margarida Ramalho (speech therapist) and Brígida Machado (illustrator) also authored the article.
Each year, the Portuguese Journal of Speech Therapy (RPTF) distinguishes the best article published with an award to encourage scientific research in the area of Speech Therapy.