Prevalence of communication disorders among school children in Ballari, South India: A cross-sectional study

Abstract

Introduction: Congenital or acquired childhood communication disorders can negatively impact the emotional, social and academic skills in children. Research studies have reported that school going children are at higher risk of having communication disorders which will affect their academic and other skills. However, there is a dearth of studies on epidemiological data on communication disorders in school going children hence the present study was carried out to estimate the prevalence of communication disorders among school going children of Ballari district. Method: In a Cross-sectional study carried out on 2304 school going children (6-16years) of primary and secondary government schools in rural areas of Ballari district, Karnataka were screened using subjective & objective measures for communication disorders. Results: The results revealed a total of 99 out of 2304 children were identified with communication disorders indicating a prevalence rate of 4.29%. Among them, a total of 75 children were having hearing and otological disorders (3.25%) and 24 children were having speech and language disorders (1.04%). Further, the prevalence of communication disorders was found to be higher among males (2.38%) compared to females (1.91%). Conclusion:The present study found a lesser prevalence rate of communication disorder in school aged children of Ballari district, than the previous studies. Hearing loss and otological problems such as impacted cerumen, ear pain, ear discharge, etc., were found to be more than speech-language disorders such as stuttering, speech sound disorders and child language disorders.

Low language capacity in childhood: A systematic review of prevalence estimates

“…The majority of studies included in this review did not apply specific diagnostic criteria to the estimation of low language capacity in children. As would be expected, studies in which researchers applied specific and recently established diagnostic criteria (e.g., DSM‐V, CATALISE) reported more consistent prevalence estimates ranging from approximately 3%–7% (with the exception of Ravi et al., 2021, 0.4%). In contrast, studies that were published prior to updated diagnostic criteria and/or that did not reference establish diagnostic criteria reported estimates ranging from 3.4% to 25.2%.…”

“…A range of sampling methods were used across studies. Researchers in six studies utilised secondary source sampling (Calder et al., 2022; Collisson et al., 2016; McLeod & Harrison, 2009; Silva, 1980; Smith et al., 2021; Zubrick et al., 2007), three used convenience sampling (Jessup et al., 2008; Ravi et al., 2021; Sidhu et al., 2013), two used cluster sampling (Shanbal & Reddy, 2015; Tchoungui Oyono et al., 2018), one used random sampling (Eapen et al., 2004) and six articles used stratified sampling. Of these six, four were stratified random sampling (Beitchman et al., 1986; Horwitz et al., 2003; Norbury et al., 2016a, 2016b; Thapa et al., 2016; Wong et al., 1992) one was just stratified sampling (Oryadi‐Zanjani et al., 2015) and one was stratified cluster sampling (Tomblin et al., 1997).…”

“…Prevalence estimates for low language skills ranged from 0.4% to 25.2% across studies, reflecting a discrepancy of 24.8% across the 19 publications included in this review. Estimated prevalence of low expressive language skills ranged from 7.7% (Thapa et al., 2016) to 25.2% (McLeod & Harrison, 2009), and prevalence of receptive language skill from 5% (Thapa et al., 2016) to 16.9% (McLeod & Harrison, 2009), and combined from 0.4% (Ravi et al., 2021) to 24.9% (Smith et al., 2021).…”

“…Across the 19 studies, prevalence of low language was estimated in 23,678 children between 1.0 (Horwitz et al., 2003; Sidhu et al., 2013) and 16.0 years of age (Ravi et al., 2021), with the percentage of male participants varying from 49% (Ravi et al., 2021) to 56% (Sidhu et al., 2013). Eight studies included in this review examined the prevalence of low language in children aged between 1 and 4 years (Collison et al., 2016; Horwitz et al., 2003; Sidhu et al., 2013; Zubrick et al., 2007), and reported prevalence rates between 3.4% to 17.5% (M = 10.7%).…”

Speech assessment tool methods for speech impaired children: a systematic literature review on the state-of-the-art in Speech impairment analysis

“…According to recent studies, the prevalence of speech and language impairments in children is rising [ 67 , 68 ]. Speech therapy is the most common therapeutic intervention for SSD, but it is also one of the most expensive and challenging treatments available other than surgery.…”