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May is Better Hearing and Speech Month!


The following information is brought to you by the National Institute on Deafness and other Communication Disorders (NIDCD):

Information was updated as of May 2016:

Speech

  • 5 percent of U.S. children ages 3-17 have a speech disorder that lasted for a week or longer during the past 12 months.

  • The prevalence of speech sound disorders (namely, articulation disorders or phonological disorders) in young children is 8 to 9 percent. By the first grade, roughly 5 percent of children have noticeable speech disorders, including stuttering, speech sound disorders, and dysarthria; the majority of these speech disorders have no known cause.

  • More than three million Americans (about one percent) stutter. Stuttering can affect individuals of all ages, but occurs most frequently in young children between the ages of 2 and 6. Boys are two to three times more likely than girls to stutter. Although most children who stutter outgrow the condition while young, as many as one in four will continue to stutter for the rest of their lives, a condition known as persistent developmental stuttering.

  • Language

  • 3.3 percent of U.S. children ages 3-17 have a language disorder that lasted for a week or longer during the past 12 months.

  • Research suggests that the first 6 months of life are the most crucial to a child’s development of language skills. For a person to become fully competent in any language, exposure must begin as early as possible, preferably before school age.

  • Anyone can acquire aphasia (a loss of the ability to use or understand language), but most people who have aphasia are in their middle to late years. Men and women are equally affected. Nearly 180,000 Americans acquire the disorder each year.12 About 1 million persons in the U.S. currently have aphasia

  • Voice

  • An estimated 17.9 million U.S. adults ages 18 or older, or 7.6%, report having had a problem with their voice in the past 12 months.3,4 Approximately 9.4 million (4.0%) adults report having a problem using their voice that lasted one week or longer during the last 12 months.

  • 1.4 percent of U.S. children have a voice disorder that lasted for a week or longer during the past 12 months.

  • Spasmodic dysphonia, a voice disorder caused by involuntary movements of one or more muscles of the larynx (voice box), can affect anyone. The first signs of this disorder are found most often in people ages 30-50. More women than men appear to be affected.

Please visit the website for more information!

https://www.nidcd.nih.gov/health/statistics/quick-statistics-voice-speech-language

‪913-890-3757‬

5001 College Blvd. Suite 108

Leawood, KS 66211

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