The aim of this study was to investigate the relationship between linguistic performance and gender of children with neonatal hypoxic-ischemic encephalopathy (NHIE). This was a cross-sectional study with a convenience sample that included 70 children, aged 0 to 24 months, with NHIE. The language performance data were collected using the Brunet-Lezine Scale, totaling 18 testings to evaluate this specific domain of cortical function in an Ambulatory Pediatric Neurology Service of the Irmandade Santa Casa de Misericórdia de Porto Alegre Hospital during a 2-year period. Language and gender variables were analyzed statistically using Fisher's exact test in SPSS version 10.0. It was observed that until the tenth month, with the exception of language tasks for the seventh month, in which boys excelled (71.4%) compared to girls (33.3%), the performance of both genders was quite similar. After this period, the linguistic performance of girls was clearly better, although the results were not statistically significant. It was concluded that language development is related to gender in children with EHIN, although the statistical analysis did not provide statistically significant results. Correlations with higher levels of significance should arise from larger samples. In this context, further research in this area is suggested.
