Communication difficulties among children aged 4-16 years diagnosed with cerebral palsy having motor speech disorders at hill preparatory school Naguru.

Abstract

Introduction. Communication difficulties among children with motor speech disorders are highly increasing. Individuals with Cerebral palsy have a characteristic profile of language and communication strengths and difficulties. Most individuals with cerebral palsy have mental retardation and speech and language deficits, particularly in language production and syntax and poor speech intelligibility. Objective. To find out communication difficulties and their impacts among children aged four to sixteen years diagnosed with motor speech disorders secondary to cerebral palsy Methodology. It was a prospective cross sectional study where both qualitative and quantitative methods of data collection were used. Simple random sampling technique was used to select research participants. The study comprised of 24 children aged four to sixteen years. The study was conducted from Hill preparatory school located in Naguru Ethical considerations. The research study was approved by the ENT department Makerere University College of health sciences and Hill preparatory school. All collected data was kept confidential and only exposed to the concerned parties. Results. Fourteen percent (14%) of the children were nonverbal, and 86% were verbal but with verbal expressive language impairment. Of all the children, 71% understood gestures, 29% had difficulty to understand gestures. Of the children aged 4-7 years, 92% had the social interaction skills observed according to the questionnaire, while 66% were seen in those aged 8 -16 years. Conclusions.Verbal expressive language impairment was common among children involved in the research study