Children with Language Impairment: Prevalence, Associated Difficulties, and Ethnic Disproportionality in an English Population

Abstract

Language impairment (LI) is one of the most common types of special educational needs (SENs), not only as a child's primary need but also as a secondary domain associated with other types of SENs. LI is a risk factor for children's later development, being associated with enhanced behavioral, emotional, and social difficulties, in particular peer problems and emotional difficulties; literacy difficulties, including both reading and writing; and reduced levels of academic achievement. Risks arising from LI in early childhood may also have an impact through adolescence and into adult life. This study uses national data from the UK government's annual census of all students aged 5-16 years attending state schools in England at four time periods between 2005 and 2011, over 6 million students at each census. We analyze the data on students with speech, language, and communication needs (SLCN), the Department for Education's category for students with LI, to examine the overall prevalence of SLCN and the variations in prevalence associated with child factors namely, age, gender, ethnicity, socioeconomic disadvantage, and having English as an additional language, and with contextual factors, namely the school and local authority. We also examine disproportionality of identification of SLCN for different ethnic groups compared with White British children. We discuss the implications of our findings with respect to the current debates regarding the varied terminology for LI, including SLCN, and of a needs-based compared with diagnosis-based approach to assessing and making provision for children and young people with SENs.

Risk Factors for Speech-Language Pathologies in Children

“…The characteristics that persisted in the current study in relation to the previous study [7] were age range, male gender prevalence, and shy and afective temperament. These data corroborate previous studies [8][9][10][11][12][13].Boys are more likely to have speech and language diiculties compared to girls though scientists are undecided as to why. Research works are still being carried into the reasons for this distinction between the sexes.…”

“…There was a signiicant relationship between language disorders and social disadvantage. Children with high socioeconomic disadvantage were 2.30 times more likely to have language disorders than children with low levels of socioeconomic disadvantage [12]. Of the environmental factors, both parents' education and social class correlated positively with the child's language comprehension in a previous study [14].…”

“…Research works are still being carried into the reasons for this distinction between the sexes. Boys are 2.6 times more likely to be identiied with language disorders than girls, indicating the strong gender discrepancy found consistently in epidemiological studies [12].One point that difered to the previous study was the socioeconomic level of the family members who sought speech and hearing care. The highest frequency of search was of individuals in class C2 (25.2%), followed by B2 (21.8%), and D (19.7%).…”

“…Research works are still being carried into the reasons for this distinction between the sexes. Boys are 2.6 times more likely to be identiied with language disorders than girls, indicating the strong gender discrepancy found consistently in epidemiological studies [12].…”

“…The authors concluded that it seems that the efect of birth order is limited to the onset of language production [31]. Other hypotheses considered for these results are the division of atention that the parents need to do with the birth of the youngest son and his infantilization for a longer time comparing to the oldest [7][8][9][10][11][12][13]. We can observe the possible relation between the treatment of the parents with the youngest child and the only child.…”