Prevalence of Children At-Risk for Developing Communication Disorders in the Urban Primary Schools of Dharwad

Abstract

It is essential to estimate the prevalence of those at-risk for developing communication disorders in a specific area for their prevention, early identification and early rehabilitation. Availability of prevalence data helps in effective planning and implementation of rehabilitation services. The present study aimed to study the prevalence of school-going children at-risk for developing communication disorders and to estimate the distribution of such conditions across gender and grade in urban schools of Dharwad, North Karnataka. A total of 2241 children from Pre-Kindergarten (Pre-KG) to sixth grade were screened for risk of having communication disorders. The overall prevalence showed that around 10.3% of total children screened had risk of developing communication disorders. Among them, language disorders (40%) were found to be the highest followed by speech (29%) and hearing (9%). Further, 5% of the children had multiple disorders. Across gender, the prevalence was more in boys (61.2%) than girls (38.7%). Further, grade wise distribution showed higher occurrence of communication disorders from Upper-Kindergarten (UKG) to Grade 3. It can be concluded from the study that there is a high prevalence of school-going children at-risk for developing communication disorders. Hence, it is important to conduct regular speech and hearing screening in schools to enable early identification of the same.