Untersuchung zum aktuellen Sprachstand ehemals sprachentwicklungsgestörter Kinder

In child development, speech and language disorders are among the most common developmental disorders. Among these, specific language impairment (SLI) is of special significance, affecting five to eight percent of children in the German-speaking area and being determined by a variety of causes. Studies from recent years identified a variety of effects of the disorder that influence affected children with respect to written and spoken language, psychosocial development and school attendance up to adolescence and adulthood. In daily clinical practice it is evident that children affected with SLI are oftentimes additionally affected with an Auditory Processing Disorder (APD). The symptoms of this disorder typically do not become apparent until school age, afflicted children show attention deficits in class as well as deficits in the acquisition of written language skills. It remains to be an object of research whether SLI and APD are causally connected or if said disorders occur independently as comorbidities. Further research on the prognosis of SLI in the German-speaking area as well as insights about the potential relationships between SLI and APD are of particular importance to affected children, their parents, therapists and teachers, in order that possible parallelisms may be detected at an early stage, thus enabling more effective therapies and mitigation of the disorder's effects. This study undertakes a follow-up on children previously affected by SLI. It is designed to be a preliminary study with the aim of laying the groundwork for a prospective study in which children affected with SLI would be monitored over a longer term. For this, an interdisciplinary team developed a questionnaire for parents that was supposed to efficiently evaluate the parent's assessment of the state of their child's language acquisition. Further emphases were set on gathering information about the acquisition of written language skills, school attendance and the existence of APD. The study collective consisted of former patients of the clinic for phoniatrics and paediatric audiology at the university hospital of Marburg. The majority of patients were between four and a half and six years old and had suffered from both expressive and receptive speech development disorders. Patients with peripheral hearing defects and mental handicaps were excluded from the collective. The evaluation of the questionnaires showed that 23 % of the polled parents stated that their children – who at the time already were eleven years old on average – still had speech problems. At the time of diagnosis, these children frequently showed a receptive component of SLI rather than a purely expressive disorder. Parents identified the following language deficits: Frequent searching for words (16,4 %) and incomplete sentences (25 %). The children's expressive intelligibility and the ability to understand oral instructions were not described as problematic. According to their parents, the children of the collective could be enrolled at school in due time. In comparison to the German average, the number of children that had to repeat a grade is increased by 5 percent. The majority of children formerly suffering from SLI are able to attend a regular school (86,3 %). However, the remaining 13,7 percent are reliant on some form of language training like attending a school for the speech handicapped or a special school. Concerning the acquisition of written language skills, the following problem areas could be identified: Word-formation (16 %), reading synthesis (30 %), syntax (33 %) and orthography (50 %). According to the parents, this area is thus affected much more frequently than the children's actual spoken language. A clustering of APD in the collective could not be verified. The results of the statistical testing through Fisher's exact tests showed no significant differences between the groups with regard to questions concerning the prognosis of expressive disorders and SLI with a receptive component. Since previous research points in the same direction, the results of this study can be understood as a clear trend. However, the collected data does not allow for conclusive statements about the prognosis, school career and relations to APD. In order to come to such conclusions, it is recommended to carry out a prospective study with a bigger patient collective and standardized measuring on the basis of this preliminary study.