Revista de patología y terapia del habla

Abstracto

Evaluation of Home Communication Skills in Children with Speech Delay

Seda Keten, Ayse Sanem Sahli and Mesut Kaya

Aim: The purpose of this study is to examine the communication skills of children with speech delay and to examine the impact of the child's gender, age, family type, attendance at kindergarten, socio-economic level of the family, parental occupation, educational status on the child’s communication skills.
Materials and methods: Parents of 100 children between 3 and 6 yrs of age who were diagnosed with delayed speech were included. Parents' General Information Form and Home Communication Questionnaire were applied through face-to-face interview technique. Turkish Preschool Language Scale (TPLS)-5 was used in evaluating children's language and speech skills.
Results: 66% of children with delayed speech who participated in this study are boys and 34% are girls. When children spend time with adults, 89% of them play physical games and 83% learning games, 79% check books and 67% do daily work. The time children spend at home is as follows; 13.76 h with the mother, 4.76 h with the siblings, 4.51 h with the father, 1.24 h with the other family members, and 0.19 h with the other persons. Children spend an average of 2.79 h watching TV at the weekend, and 2.34 h during the weekdays on a daily basis.
Conclusion: The increasing use of erroneous and long-lasting technology (computer, tablet, etc.) in recent years constructs the basis for speech delay in early childhood. Especially important is the effective use of speech between the ages 0 and 3, the most critical period for language and speech development, by increasing educational verbal communication in the home environment and by keeping children away from intense visual stimuli as much as possible.