All issues > Volume 35(9); 1992

Original Article

J Korean Pediatr Soc. 1992;35(9):1236-1242. Published online September 15, 1992.

Children with Delayed Speech Development

Keun K Lee¹

¹Department of Pediatrics, College of Medicine Ewha Womans University, Seoul, Korea

Abstract

Language disorder is one of the most common developmental disorder, its prevalence being 3~20% according to various reports. Delayed speech development is frequently associated with other type of developmental disorder and, if left untreated, can lead to learning difficulty or school failure. Etiologies of delayed speech development are infantile autism, mental retardation, developmental language disorder, hearing defect, emotional disorder or poor education, etc. From May, 1990 to Sept, 1991, patients with chief complaint of delayed speech development were collected prospectively at Department of pediatrics, Ehwa Womans University Hospital. Among total of 134 patients with delayed speech, 106 cases had valid records including diagnosis and were analyzed. Of 106 cases, infantile autism was 45(42.5%), developmental language disorder 22(20.8%), mental retardation 19(17.9%), hearing defect 6(5.7%), no abnormality 7(6.6%), articulation disorder only 3(2.8%) and others 4(3.7%). Excluding groups of no abnormality, articulation disorder and other, 92 patients were statistically analyzed. Male was predominant(82.6%) and the most frequent age group was 25~36 months. Abnormal physical findings were most frequent in mental retardation group and so was delay of Korean Denver Developmental Screening Test. Correlation between Denver test and language test were highly significant but 13 patients were delayed in language test but had no delay in Denver test. It is concluded that, since parents bring their children with delayed speech too late, it is recommended that all children between 18 and 24 months of age should be screened for language dealy and language development should be included in pediatric trining program.

Keywords :Delayed speech development