PREVALENCE OF SPEECH AND LANGUAGE DISORDERS IN A TERTIARY CARE HOSPITAL: A RETROSPECTIVE STUDY

Abstract

Objective: The objective of the study is to identify the prevalence of various types of speech, language and communication disorders in patients visiting Audiology and Speech Language Pathology Unit of ENT Department of Tribhuvan University Teaching Hospital.

Materials & Methods: A retrospective study was carried out using the secondary data of the patients visiting theAudiology and Speech Language Pathology Unit, Department of ENT- Head and Neck Surgery, Tribhuvan University Teaching Hospital for duration of one year from May 2016 to April 2017. The data were entered and analyzed in MS-Excel. Ethical approval was taken from the Institutional Research Committee.

Results: Out of the total 447 patients with speech disorders, 9.84% were of pediatric age groupand 90.16% of the patients were of adult age group. Similarly, out of 142 patients of language disorders, 73.23% werepediatric group and 26.77% of the patients were adults.Speech disorder was more common than language disorder as a whole. Disorder of misarticulation was the most common speech disorder in pediatric population and voice disorder was the most common speech disorder in adult population. Similarly, in pediatric population language delay due to hearing loss was most prominent language disorder followed by intellectual disability and cerebral palsy whereas, aphasia being the only language disorder in adult.

Conclusion: Misarticulation and language disorder due to hearing loss is more common speech and language disorder in pediatric population whereas, in adult population voice disorder and aphasia were found to be more common.

Keywords: Disorder, Language, speech