Exploratory Study on the Prevalence of Speech Sound Disorders in a Group of Valencian School Students Belonging to 3rd Grade of Infant School and 1st Grade of Primary School

Abstract

Dyslalia or sound speech disorder is the most common speech production difficulty among school children. This epidemiological study aims to know the prevalence of SSD in school children and to analyze the relationship between articulatory disorders and bad oral habits, age, gender and socioeconomic situation. Two hundred and ninety children between 4 and 7 years old were evaluated by means of the Marc Monfort Test, a myofunctional test, and a questionnaire was applied to families. The results show that 51.4% of the schoolchildren present SSD. The most frequent type of error is distortion followed by substitution. Multiple dyslalia is more frequent than simple dyslalia. The relation of dependence between phonetic alterations and masculine gender is observed, as well as a decrease of articulation disorders as age increases and a significant relation between bad oral habits and the presence of dyslalia.