title: Speech defects in children aged 7 years: a national study.
abstract: A series of screening procedures applied on a national scale by doctors, teachers, and health visitors showed that between 10% and 13% of British 7-year-old children born in one week in 1958 were reported as having an appreciable degree of speech impairment. Between 1% and 2% had a marked speech defect though hearing normally. This latter group of speech-defective children were more often male and of poor family background, and more were born towards the end of a long family. They were often at a disadvantage educationally and had more clumsiness and defects of vision and visuomotor co-ordination than the rest of the sample. The methods used for screening provided a reliable guide in the selection of children who require further investigation.
mesh_terms: D001722:Birth Order; D002648:Child; D004522:Educational Status; D005260:Female; D006309:Hearing; D006801:Humans; D008297:Male; D011932:Reading; D012737:Sex Factors; D012917:Social Adjustment; D012923:Social Class; D012959:Socioeconomic Factors; D013064:Speech Disorders / Q000453:epidemiology*; D013070:Speech Therapy; D013342:Stuttering; D006113:United Kingdom; D014786:Vision Disorders / Q000150:complications