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The norming of the "Evaluation du language Oral" and the prevalence of speech and language disorders in pre-school aged children from Yaoundé (Cameroon)

Research suggests that speech and language disorders are among the most prevalent childhood disabilities in many countries. Identification and intervention for children with communication disorders are sought at an early stage, to avoid the consequences of untreated childhood speech and language pro...

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Main Author: Tchoungui Oyono, Lilly
Other Authors: Singh, Shajila
Format: Thesis
Language:English
Published: Division of Communication Sciences and Disorders 2016
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access_status_str Open Access
author Tchoungui Oyono, Lilly
author2 Singh, Shajila
author_browse Singh, Shajila
Tchoungui Oyono, Lilly
author_facet Singh, Shajila
Tchoungui Oyono, Lilly
author_sort Tchoungui Oyono, Lilly
collection Thesis
description Research suggests that speech and language disorders are among the most prevalent childhood disabilities in many countries. Identification and intervention for children with communication disorders are sought at an early stage, to avoid the consequences of untreated childhood speech and language problems that can lead to academic underachievement and even persist into adulthood. However, no study has been reported on the prevalence of speech and language disorders in the general population in Cameroon. Despite the published literature on the national burden of disease suggesting that a significant number of Cameroonian children might have limitations in their speech and language abilities. This descriptive cross-sectional study aimed to determine the prevalence of speech and language disorders, specifically, articulation, expressive language, receptive language, fluency and voice disorders; in a representative sample of French-speaking preschool children in Yaoundé, the capital city of Cameroon. A total of 460 children aged 3 to 5 years were recruited from the seven communes of Yaoundé city using multi-stage random sampling method. As there was no validated speech and language test available for the population of French-speaking preschool aged children in Cameroon, this study has contributed in its first part, to provide norms on three subtests of a standardised French speech and language test, the 'Evaluation du Langage Oral' (ELO) for this population. These norms can be used for clinical practice and research purpose in Cameroon. In order to determine the prevalence of articulation, expressive and receptive language disorders, a cut-off of two Standard Deviations (SD) below the normative mean was applied. The identification of fluency and voice disorders among participants was based on clinical judgement. All the assessments were performed by the researcher who is a qualified speech-language therapist with experience of practice in Cameroon. The findings indicated that the prevalence of articulation disorders was 3.6%, expressive language disorders was 1.3%, receptive language disorders was 3%, fluency disorders was 8.4% and voice disorders was 3.6%. The overall prevalence of speech disorders was 14.7%, language disorders 4.3% and speech and language disorders 17.1%. There was no significant difference in the prevalence of speech and language disorders according to gender. The prevalence of speech and language disorders in the present study was higher than that of many previous investigations conducted in other countries. The findings of this research reveals and emphasises the urgent need to build a strategy to develop speech and language services to serve the Cameroonian population.
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institution University of Cape Town (South Africa)
language eng
last_indexed 2026-06-10T12:34:06.076Z
license_str Not specified — see source repository
provenance_str_mv Harvested via OAI-PMH from UCTD — University of Cape Town Open Access Repository
publishDate 2016
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publisher Division of Communication Sciences and Disorders
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spelling oai:open.uct.ac.za:11427/20772 The norming of the "Evaluation du language Oral" and the prevalence of speech and language disorders in pre-school aged children from Yaoundé (Cameroon) Tchoungui Oyono, Lilly Singh, Shajila Pascoe, Michelle Speech-Language Pathology Research suggests that speech and language disorders are among the most prevalent childhood disabilities in many countries. Identification and intervention for children with communication disorders are sought at an early stage, to avoid the consequences of untreated childhood speech and language problems that can lead to academic underachievement and even persist into adulthood. However, no study has been reported on the prevalence of speech and language disorders in the general population in Cameroon. Despite the published literature on the national burden of disease suggesting that a significant number of Cameroonian children might have limitations in their speech and language abilities. This descriptive cross-sectional study aimed to determine the prevalence of speech and language disorders, specifically, articulation, expressive language, receptive language, fluency and voice disorders; in a representative sample of French-speaking preschool children in Yaoundé, the capital city of Cameroon. A total of 460 children aged 3 to 5 years were recruited from the seven communes of Yaoundé city using multi-stage random sampling method. As there was no validated speech and language test available for the population of French-speaking preschool aged children in Cameroon, this study has contributed in its first part, to provide norms on three subtests of a standardised French speech and language test, the 'Evaluation du Langage Oral' (ELO) for this population. These norms can be used for clinical practice and research purpose in Cameroon. In order to determine the prevalence of articulation, expressive and receptive language disorders, a cut-off of two Standard Deviations (SD) below the normative mean was applied. The identification of fluency and voice disorders among participants was based on clinical judgement. All the assessments were performed by the researcher who is a qualified speech-language therapist with experience of practice in Cameroon. The findings indicated that the prevalence of articulation disorders was 3.6%, expressive language disorders was 1.3%, receptive language disorders was 3%, fluency disorders was 8.4% and voice disorders was 3.6%. The overall prevalence of speech disorders was 14.7%, language disorders 4.3% and speech and language disorders 17.1%. There was no significant difference in the prevalence of speech and language disorders according to gender. The prevalence of speech and language disorders in the present study was higher than that of many previous investigations conducted in other countries. The findings of this research reveals and emphasises the urgent need to build a strategy to develop speech and language services to serve the Cameroonian population. 2016-07-26T12:16:03Z 2016-07-26T12:16:03Z 2016 Master Thesis Masters MSc (Med) http://hdl.handle.net/11427/20772 eng application/pdf Division of Communication Sciences and Disorders Faculty of Health Sciences University of Cape Town
spellingShingle Speech-Language Pathology
Tchoungui Oyono, Lilly
The norming of the "Evaluation du language Oral" and the prevalence of speech and language disorders in pre-school aged children from Yaoundé (Cameroon)
thesis_degree_str Master's
title The norming of the "Evaluation du language Oral" and the prevalence of speech and language disorders in pre-school aged children from Yaoundé (Cameroon)
title_full The norming of the "Evaluation du language Oral" and the prevalence of speech and language disorders in pre-school aged children from Yaoundé (Cameroon)
title_fullStr The norming of the "Evaluation du language Oral" and the prevalence of speech and language disorders in pre-school aged children from Yaoundé (Cameroon)
title_full_unstemmed The norming of the "Evaluation du language Oral" and the prevalence of speech and language disorders in pre-school aged children from Yaoundé (Cameroon)
title_short The norming of the "Evaluation du language Oral" and the prevalence of speech and language disorders in pre-school aged children from Yaoundé (Cameroon)
title_sort norming of the evaluation du language oral and the prevalence of speech and language disorders in pre school aged children from yaounde cameroon
topic Speech-Language Pathology
url http://hdl.handle.net/11427/20772
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