One third of children suffer from language problems

Every third preschooler has a language development disorder

31.01.2012

More than one million children under the age of 14 have difficulty in language development. Particularly affected are children in pre-school age. In this age group, the diagnosis of language development disorder is increasingly being made. The affected persons receive help from the speech therapist.

One third of preschool children suffers from language problems. This is evident from the figures of today published physician report of the largest German health insurance Barmer GEK. Like the news agency „dpa“ reports, the report also shows significant gender differences in adolescents' speech disorders. Accordingly, boys are significantly more affected than girls.

More than a million children with language problems
According to Barmer GEK's medical report presented on Tuesday in Berlin, about 38 percent of boys under the age of six and 30 percent of girls up to the age of six have speech problems requiring treatment. According to this, around one in three preschool children suffers from language development difficulties. About 20 percent of all five-year-old boys actually received a speech therapy prescription for the treatment of their speech disorders, with girls accounting for 14 percent. According to the medical report of the Barmer GEK, the national average of children with speech and language disorders was 10.3 percent, which corresponds to an absolute number of 1.12 million children (aged from zero to 14 years).

Speech development disorders are no cause for alarm
However, according to Rolf-Ulrich Schlenker, Deputy Chief of the Barmer-GEK, the numbers are not a cause for concern, because „We see that professional language support is used.“ However, the increase in the diagnoses of speech developmental disorder is indeed conspicuous. The same applies, for example, to the diagnosis of attention deficit hyperactivity disorder (ADHD). Here, the trend from previous years has also continued in the current medical report. The diagnosis of ADHD also affects boys in particular. Overall, according to Barmer GEK figures, 9.6 percent of nine-year-old boys are being treated by a neurologist or psychiatrist, 60 percent of whom are diagnosed with ADHD. In the same age girls are only six percent in a corresponding treatment, with 40 percent of cases, an ADHD diagnosis is the reason. In addition to these until a few decades rather rare diseases such as language development disorders or AHDS according to the current medical report, the classic childhood diseases such as chickenpox, scarlet fever or rubella continue to be relatively strongly represented.

Decline in outpatient treatments
However, the doctor's report also contains pleasing numbers. For example, the number of outpatient treatment cases per insured person has fallen slightly for the first time since 2004 after adjustment for age. In 2010, this dropped to 7.93 per insured, compared to 8.04 in the previous year. The treatment rate (persons with at least one medical treatment per year) remained almost unchanged from the last medical report at 91 per cent, which is also a sign of the Vice President Barmer GEK „excellent outpatient care“ in Germany. (Fp)

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Image: Dieter Schütz