Speech language disorders unfolded in Islamabad's periphery: A tertiary health care facility experience

Speech language disorders are common and result in communication problems. Impaired hearing, speech, language, fluency, cognition, and neuro-motor mechanisms of speech may be involved in causation. Prevalence varies from place to place, setups and socio demographic factors. Islamabad’s periphery harboring low- and middle-income population was focused in this observational cross-sectional study to retrospectively determine the prevalence of speech-language disorders and their association with socio-demographic variables. This study included all cases with speech language disorders (SLD’s), from departmental patient record of Speech Language Pathology clinic, Al-Nafees Medical College & Hospital, Isra University from 1st January 2014 to 31st December 2018. Population included male and female genders with no limitation of age. Descriptive analysis was performed using SPSS version 21. Population included n=3148 cases, with M:F ratio of 2.28:1 and mean age of 11.8±13.38 years. Most prevalent pathology was SLD secondary to hearing impairment (19.82%), followed by SLD secondary to intellectual disability (17.4%), stuttering (16.84%) and delayed speech and language (15.2%). This study concludes that speech language disorders due to hearing impairment and intellectual disability are most prevalent and have association with lower and middle socioeconomic class, male gender, consanguinity, being first child, increase in number of children and a weak referral system.