Role of Demographic Factors and Family History in Children with Speech Delay

Speech is the verbal mean of producing language & Language is the conceptual processing of communication. Children are considered to have speech delay if their speech development is considerably below the norm for children of same age. Objective: To estimate the effects of demographic factors and family health in children with speech delay. Methods: A Cross sectional study was conducted to find the association of demographic factors and family history in children with speech delay. Convenient sampling technique was used. Sample of 50 children between the ages of 1 to 6 years with speech delay was enrolled from Outpatient department of Child & Family Psychiatry ward, Mayo Hospital, Lahore and statistically analyzed using SPSS version 21.0. Results: Females were more affected than males i.e. 44.2% were male and 55.8% were female. Speech delay was more prevalent in children with 1st birth order i.e. 38%. Among them 76% were urban and 24% had rural background while 40% children came from monthly income below 10,000. 72% of children were not having any family history of speech delay. Conclusions: It was concluded that gender and birth order can greatly influence the speech disorders. First child has greater chances of having speech delay normally due to less exposure or less given chances to express. Girls have less risk of speech delay as compared to boys were at lesser risk than boys. Urban children were more prone to speech delay while speech delay in children was not linked to family history.