Communication disorders are among the most common disabilities in the US.
- 28-60% of children with a speech and language deficit have a sibling and/or parent who is also affected.
- The prevalence of speech sound disorder in young children is 8- 9%.
- By first grade, roughly five percent of children have noticeable speech disorders, the majority of which have no known cause.
- Children with phonological disorders often require other types of services, with 50-70% exhibiting general academic difficulty through grade 12.
- It is estimated that more than 3 million Americans stutter. Stuttering affects people of all ages but occurs most frequently in young children between the ages of 2 and 6.
- Boys are 3 times more likely to stutter than girls are.
- 6-8 million people in the US have some form of language impairment.
- Research suggests that the first 6 months are the most crucial to a child’s development of language skills.
- Approximately 7.5 million people in the US have trouble using their voices.
Is your child “on track?”
Please answer “yes” or “no” for each of the following statements:
- Your child is not talking by the age of two or uses less than twenty words.
- At age two, your child primarily gestures, grunts, or points to communicate.
- You have a difficult time understanding your child after the age of three.
- Your child is leaving off many beginning or ending consonants at age three.
- Your child requires repetition to understand simple directions at age three.
- At age three, your child does not combine words into two or three word phrases or more and is less than 80 percent intelligible (able to be understood).
- Your child’s speech consists of mostly vowel sounds.
- Your child’s sentence structure is incomplete; he/she leaves out words or substitutes words at age five.
- Your child’s speech is too fast, too slow, or doesn’t flow naturally at age five.
- Your child is embarrassed and bothered by their speech at any age.
- Your child is making errors in speech sounds after age six.
- Your child’s voice quality is too high or too low for their age or sex.