A Comparative Study of the Communication Profile of Typically Developing Children and Children with Receptive-Expressive Language Disorders: A Parental Perceptive

Parental concerns pertaining to communication abilities are essential as it does aid in the identification of the children at risk of physical and mental health problems.

The current study followed a cross sectional study design. The study focussed on developing a questionnaire targeting the parental concerns in Typically developing (TD) children and children with Receptive-Expressive Language Disorders (CWRELD) between 3.7 and 6.6 years of age; to administer the developed questionnaire on parents of TD children and CWRELD; and to analyse and compare the concerns faced by parents of TD children and CWRELD across 3.7 and 6.6 years of age.

Fifty-one parents of TD children and 51 parents of CWRELD participated in the study. The study was carried out in three phases- Phase I included the development and validation of questionnaire; Phase II included data collection using the developed questionnaire; and Phase III included performing statistical analysis. Descriptive statistics was done to determine the mean and standard deviation (SD) for both the TD and CWRELD groups.

The results revealed that the concerns exhibited by parents of CWRELD were significantly higher than that of parents of TD children. Chi square results indicated statistically significant findings across all the domains between TD children and CWRELD (p<0.05).

The developed questionnaire can be used in clinical settings to help track parental concerns which may aid in the early identification of children at risk of various communication disorders. Additionally, this questionnaire may be considered for monitoring parental concerns throughout the course of the intervention program.