Prevalencia del retraso simple del lenguaje en niños escolares de nueve parroquias rurales del Distrito Metropolitano de Quito

Abstract

Context: in the group of linguistic alterations that occur in childhood, it is the simple delay of the language, defined as the affectation of the linguistic function in the absence of other alterations of physiological, sensory, cognitive or neurological nature, the most prevalent. Objective: to determine the prevalence of simple delay of the language in school children from nine rural parishes in the Metropolitan District of Quito. Methods: epidemiological, observational, descriptive and cross-sectional study, in 1311 participants, 50% girls and 50% boys between the ages of 5 to 5 years 11 months, during the period October 2014 to May 2016. For the assessment, the clinical records was used, and also a speech therapy, comprehensive and expressive language exploration (ELE), oral language assessment (OLA) and dislalia evaluation protocol (DEP). Alterations in the language components related to form (phonetic-phonological), content (semantic) and use (syntax) were assessed. Results: 48.30% of those evaluated presented simple delay of the language (55% boys and 45% girls); the problems at the syntactic level correspond to 38% of the total, while at the semantic level it affects 79% of respondents and in the phonetic-phonological area it corresponded to 30% of the total number of students studied. Conclusion: prevalence of simple delay of the language is high; and deserves new studies in other population groups to understand linguistic disorder, in order to strengthen programs of prevention, evaluation, diagnosis and speech therapy rehabilitation.