Descriptors and their interrelations: Speech Pathology and Special Education

Abstract

Aim: To verify the use of standardized descriptors in the scientific production resultant of the interface between Speech Pathology and Special Education. Methods: The methodological steps followed in the present study were: a) literature review on descriptors; Special Education and Speech Pathology; b) identification and analysis of descriptors established in 74 doctoral and master’s theses of the Post-Graduate Program in Special Education at Federal University of São Carlos between 1984 and 2005; c) checking of the correlation between the descriptors present in academic studies and those established by the Health Sciences Descriptors (DeCS). Results: From the 74 papers in which the intersection between Speech Pathology and Special Education was detected, 15 keywords were retrieved, of which eight (46.66%) were not within the scope of DeCS. Conclusions: This finding demonstrates that the authors did not adopt any controlled vocabulary to attribute keywords, which indicates unawareness regarding the importance of using descriptors that are indexed in reliable databases to improve the quality of papers, increasing their visibility by the scientific community.