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This study examined the 7-year psychiatric outcome of 202 speech/language (S/L) impaired and control children selected from a community sample at age 5 years. Children with S/L at age 5 years were more likely to be psychiatric cases at age 12.5 years than were normal controls, even if their S/L improved. Controlling for concurrent psychiatric disorder, S/L impairment at age 5 years was still associated with an increased rate of psychiatric disorder at 12.5 years. Psychiatric disorder at age 12.5 years was more likely to co-occur with language disorder than with speech disorder.

Based on an initial community sample of 1,655 5-year-old children, this report utilized the risk statistic to estimate a child's risk for developing a psychiatric disturbance depending on his or her status as speech/language-impaired. Results showed that risk estimates varied as a function of gender and source of information (teacher, parent, psychiatric reports). Overall, speech- and language-impaired children had a higher risk for developing a psychiatric disturbance compared with normal language controls, with speech/language-impaired girls being at greater risk than boys.

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