| ObjectiveFunctional articulation disorder (FAD) is the most common language - speech disorder, which is also called developmental articulation disorder. Children with FAD often show accompanying communication difficulties in social relationships and emotional and behavioral problems especially reading difficulties in school - aged children. The prevalence is very high in abroad, a conservative estimate is that approximately 10 percent of preschoolers have FAD, whereas 0.78 percent in children aged 4 ~ 16 years and 2.14 percent in children aged 4~6 years in our nation. The cause of FAD is unknown; some studies abroad support the view that children with FAD are inferior to normal- speaking children in both auditory memory and auditory discrimination. Since no reports about the cause of FAD and auditory perception development in children were found in our nation, it is necessary to study auditory discrimination of Chinese children with FAD in order to investigate the etiology and pathology. Because the prevalence of FAD is most high in children aged 4 ~ 6 years, we selected FAD children aged 4 ~ 6 as subjects to investigate the auditory discrimination as well as intellectual structure.MethodsSubjects were the children aged 4 ~ 6 years with articulation disorders more than half a year diagnosed in our department from December 2001 to January 2003. There were 42 children meet the criteria of FAD, ages from 4 years to 6 years 9 months. The children who came to our department for normal body examination matched for ages were selected as control group; some of children in control group also came from kindergartens. The selected criteria were as the following: no language disorder such as articulation problem and language developmental retardation; normal intelligence; normal audition. There were 47 children meet the standard, from 4 years to 6 years 7 months. A general information questionnaire was completed at first which include parents'educational level and profession, illness in pregnancy, birth situation, family structure, parental educational behavior, the beginning time of speaking, heredity and family history et al. The Wechsler young children scales of intelligence ( C - WYCSI) was administered to evaluate children'intelligence. The auditory discrimination abilities of all the children were studied with software explored by an America electricity limited company. There were 8 traffic sounds and 10 animal sounds to be tested respectively. The children in test group were examined to rule out organic and motor dysarthria. The evaluation of articulation was done according to the criteria of articulation evaluation made by Chinese Rehabilitation Research Center and language developments were evaluated with the examination of S - S language retardation. Multiple regression analysis was conducted with SPSS software. Paired - Samples T Test was used to analyze auditory discrimi-nation variables, and Independent - Samples T Test was used to analyze intellectual structure; Chi - square test was used to analyze categorical variables.Results1. Analysis of general information about children with FADThe results showed that there were no significant differences a-bout parents'educational level, factors in pregnancy and deli very, family structure and imitated factors between the two groups, whereas significant differences were found about the beginning time of speaking, heredity and positive family history.2. Independent risk factors relating to children s auditory discriminationVariables including age, gender, VIQ, PIQ, FIQ, parents' educational level were conducted by multiple regression analysis. We concluded that age, gender and FIQ were independent risk factors to auditory discrimination ability of traffic sounds, and age, FIQ were independent risk factors to auditory discrimination ability of animal sounds.3. Analysis of auditory discrimination ability of children with FAD According to the multiple regression analysis to match pairs,which added up to 34 pairs. Discrimination abi... |
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