Prevalence of speech and language disorders in children in the western region of São Paulo.

PURPOSE: To establish the speech-language disorders in children living in the western region of São Paulo; to assess associations between diagnosis hypotheses (DH) and the age, gender and origin of referral; and to investigate the degree of agreement between the complaint and the DH at the moment of speech-language screening.

METHODS: Observational epidemiological study conducted at a laboratory of Primary Health Care. A survey of 525 medical records of children between 2002 and 2011 was conducted. The following variables were analyzed: gender and age of the child; origin of referral, complaint reported by parents, diagnosis hypothesis and referrals.

RESULTS: There was a predominance of male children (68.3%) and of the age group between 3 and 5 years and 11 months (48.7%), referred by a health professional (51.9%) and with more than one complaint reported by parents (26.1%). The most frequent DH were Phonological Disorder (22.9%) and more than one Diagnosis Hypothesis (19.4%). Most children were referred to a clinic-school where screening was performed (77.9%). There was an association between DH and the variables age (p <0.001*), gender (p = 0.008*) and origin of referrals (p <0.001). The degree of agreement between complaints and DHs was moderate.

CONCLUSION: It has been proven that there are different DHs according to age, gender and origin of referrals. The use of speech-language screening with the information provided by parents for tracking of speech pathology is recommended.