Prevalence of speech disorders among elementary school children In Al-Hilla city, Iraq, 2014

Abstract

Background: One of the neglected problems in Iraq is the speech disorder among children, which is not uncommon public health, lifelong problem that may affect their social, emotional well-being, cognition, and behavior and may be associated with lowered school performance.Objectives: To determine the prevalence of speech disorder (specifically speech sound disorders and stuttering) among a sample of first class elementary school children in Al-Hilla City,Iraq,2014, and to identify some of contributing factors of this disorder.Subjects and Methods: This is a cross-sectional study carried on first class pupils in a randomly selected sample from 16 elementary schools (8 male and 8 female schools, 50% of studied schools were from rural area). The study was conducted during the academic year 2013-2014.The number of male pupils was 532 while the number of female pupils was 529. The data were collected by using teacher reports, questionnaire, and simplified screening tests.Results: The overall prevalence of school children with speech sound disorders was 11.4%, while the prevalence of stuttering was1.2%. The prevalence of speech disorder was significantly higher among male children as compared to female, the male to female ratio was1.8:1. There was a significant relationship between the level of education of parents and speech disorder. There was a significant correlation between stuttering and school performances of students, stutterers were low school performers.Conclusion: Speech disorders are highly prevalent in first class primary schools in our community, compared to other developed countries