Population Estimates, Health Care Characteristics, and Material Hardship Experiences of U.S. Children With Parent-Reported Speech-Language Difficulties: Evidence From Three Nationally Representative Surveys.

Purpose: To provide estimates for the prevalence of parent-reported speech-language difficulties in U.S. children, and to describe the levels of health care access and material hardship in this population.

Method: We tabulated descriptive and bivariate statistics using cross-sectional data from the 2007 and 2011/2012 iterations of the National Survey of Children's Health, the 2005/2006 and 2009/2010 iterations of the National Survey of Children with Special Health Care Needs, and the 2004 and 2008 panels of the Survey of Income and Program Participation.

Results: Prevalence estimates ranged from 1.8% to 5.0%, with data from two of the three surveys preliminarily indicating increased prevalence in recent years. The largest health care challenge was in accessing care coordination, with 49%-56% of children with parent-reported speech-language difficulties lacking full access. Children with parent-reported speech-language difficulties were more likely than peers without any indications of speech-language difficulties to live in households experiencing each measured material hardship and participating in each measured public benefit program (e.g., 20%-22% experiencing food insecurity, compared to 11%-14% of their peers without any indications of speech-language difficulties).

Conclusions: We found mixed preliminary evidence to suggest that the prevalence of parent-reported speech-language difficulties among children may be rising. These children face heightened levels of material hardship and barriers in accessing health care.