The effect of schistosomiasis and soil-transmitted helminths on expressive language skills among African preschool children

Abstract

Background Schistosomiasis and soil transmitted helminths (STH) have been associated with compromised child development. We determined the effect of schistosomiasis and STH on expressive language skills among isiZulu speaking preschool children focusing on the variables: age, gender, school and stunting. Methods We quantitatively compared the performance of a cohort of infected and non-infected children using a 2 phased approach. In phase 1 infected children were treated with praziquantel and matched with non-infected children and both groups were tested for expressive language performance. In phase 2 both groups of children were re-tested for expressive language skills using a similar but modified test. The participants were 106 preschool children between the age of 4 and 6 years, 11 months. The Developmental Language Test was adapted as a linguistically and culturally appropriate tool for assessing isiZulu expressive language skills. Results The overall performance of the children in phases 1 and 2 were statistically similar. There was significant Pearson’s correlation of expressive language skills to age (0.002, P < 0.01), schistosomiasis i.e. vocabulary 1 (0.024, P < 0.05) and narrative skills (0.001, P < 0.01) and soil-transmitted helminths i.e. vocabulary 1 (0.006, P < 0.05), colours (0.029, P < 0.05) and narrative skills (0.001, P < 0.01) in phase 2 with small to high Cohen’s d effect size for various language subtests. Conclusion We concluded that even mild schistosomiasis and STH may compromise the performance of preschool children on expressive language. However poor ability in following instructions may have contributed to general poor performance across the two groups tested. Diet, school effect and stunting did not influence the performance of the children on expressive language.

Soil-transmitted helminthiases negatively impact cognitive development in children: Wechsler Intelligence Scale for Children domains.

“…In line with the present findings, Patrick et al (2005;Pinkerton et al, 2016) found that, in children with heavy burdens of early childhood diarrhea, impairments in semantic, but not phonetic, fluency were observed after controlling for maternal education, breastfeeding, and child schooling. Mazibuko and Chimbari (2022) found that schistosomiasis and other STHs were correlated with lower expressive language scores. Such impacts on semantic and semiotic aspects of language are important, given the role of language in the development of higher thought (Frawley, 1996;Vygotsky, 2012).…”

“…Indeed, in children with heavy burdens of early childhood diarrhea, impairments in semantic, but not phonetic, fluency were observed after controlling for maternal education, breastfeeding, and child schooling (Patrick et al, 2005). Likewise, while schistosomiasis STHs were not related to language impairments during diagnosis, STHs were correlated with lower expressive language scores 12 weeks later (Mazibuko & Chimbari, 2022).…”

Praziquantel-related visual disorders among recipients in mass drug administration campaigns in schistosomiasis endemic settings: Systematic review and meta-analysis protocol

“…Continued assessment of the safety of PZQ constitutes an important aspect of maintaining its availability (as the best chemotherapy) and public acceptability, which is invariably crucial to achieving the ambitious elimination targets. Also, schistosomiasis has been shown to significantly impact children's education due to its effects on health and cognitive development [31][32][33][34][35][36]. All efforts geared towards addressing this disease thus contribute to creating a better learning environment for children and ensuring universal access to quality education-SDG 4, target 4a.…”

Health Workers’ Perspectives on School-Based Mass Drug Administration Control Programs for Soil-Transmitted Helminths and Schistosomiasis in Ogun State, Nigeria

“…Thus, an alarming 20 million individuals yearly require treatment for schistosomiasis (5). These parasitic infections disproportionately affect vulnerable populations, especially children, and perpetuate a cycle of poverty, impaired cognitive development, and reduced school attendance (6)(7)(8).…”