Læknablaðið - 15.10.1998, Qupperneq 29

LÆKNABLAÐIÐ 1998; 84
741
Áhyggjur foreldra af málþroska barna á
aldrinum tveggja til sjö ára
Evald Sæmundsen’1, Helga Hannesdóttir2>, Stella Hermannsdóttir’1, Guömundur B. Arnkelsson31
Sæmundsen E, Hannesdóttir H, Hermannsdóttir
S, Arnkelsson GB
Parents’ concerns about language development of
their children aged two to seven studied with the
CBCL
Læknablaðið 1998; 84: 741-7
Objective: This is a pilot-study in Iceland of pa-
rents’ concems about language development of their
children. Little is known about the rate and the ex-
pression of such concems and such data is important
for developmental surveillance.
Material and methods: This study forms a part of a
larger study of the mental health of Icelandic chil-
dren aged 2-18 years with the Child Behavior Check-
list (CBCL). Parents’ concems of language problems
were studied with the CBCL in 444 children aged
two to seven sampled on a national level in Iceland.
These concems were examined by indipendent
speech and language therapists and categorized as
speech or language concems, and graded by their
possible seriousness.
Results: The CBCL picks up host of reasons for
parents’ concems. According to the parents’ comple-
tion of the CBCL about 13% of the sample were con-
sidered to have some language problems. The fre-
quency of responses showing language problems
was not related to the age of the children. The male-
female ratio was 1.5:1. According to speech and
language therapists’ categorization of parents’ con-
cems, parents described speech problems in majority
of cases (72%) as opposed to language problems
Frá 1) Greiningar- og ráðgjafarstöð ríkisins, 2) Sjúkrahúsi
SÁÁ Vogi, 3) félagsvísindadeild Háskóla íslands. Fyrir-
spurnir, bréfaskipti: Evald Sæmundsen, Greiningar- og
ráðgjafarstöð ríkisins, Digranesvegi 5,200 Kópavogi. Sími:
564 1744.
Lykilorð: áhyggjur foreldra, málþroski, CBCL.
(18%). These specialists considered parents’ con-
cerns to reflect more serious complaints as the chil-
dren grew older.
Conclusions: The majority of parents’ concerns
were considered to reflect real problems according to
specialists. There were indications that parents do
not make a distinction between language and speech.
This needs to be studied further in order to better in-
form parents on language development and its dis-
orders, and to contribute to a better focused develop-
mental surveillance.
Key words: parents' concerns, language development,
CBCL.
Ágrip
Tilgangur: Frumathugun á áhyggjum for-
eldra af málþroska bama sinna. Lítið er vitað
um tíðni og birtingarform slíkra áhyggja en
upplýsingar um þær eru mikilvægar fyrir
reglubundið eftirlit með þroska.
Efniviður og aðferðir: Rannsóknin byggir á
gögnum sem aflað var í tengslum við víðtæka
rannsókn á geðheilsu barna og unglinga á fs-
landi á aldursbilinu 2-18 ára með spumingalista
yfir atferli barna og unglinga (Child Behavior
Checklist, CBCL). Kannaðar voru áhyggjur
foreldra af málörðugleikum barna í úrtaki 444
barna af öllu landinu á aldrinum tveggja til sjö
ára. Þessar áhyggjur, eins og þær birtust sem
skrifaðar athugasemdir, voru síðan metnar af
talmeinafræðingum og flokkaðar eftir því hvort
þær áttu fremur við tal eða mál og einnig flokk-
aðar eftir alvarleika.
Niðurstöður: Spurningalistinn nær til fjöl-
breytilegra áhyggjuefna af málþroska. Tæplega
13% bamanna voru talin hafa málörðugleika
að mati foreldra. Tíðni svara um málörðugleika
var ekki háð aldri. Hlutfall drengja og stúlkna í