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Examination of Anxiety Levels of the Parents of Children Diagnosed with Speech Sound Disorders in Early Childhood

Simge Şen Maral Yeşilyurt
Abstract

Purpose: Early childhood is one of the most critical periods of development in terms of acquiring language skills. It is important to examine the anxiety levels of parents of children with language and speech disorders in early childhood as parents play an important role in the development and education of children. Especially in early childhood, parents are of great importance as they are the first people the child communicates with. Therefore, it is important for parents to understand the sense of responsibility they feel when they have to deal with a problem with their child. The aim of the study is to determine the anxiety levels of parents of children with speech sound disorders. Speech sound disorder is a language and speech problem frequently encountered in early childhood, but when the literature was examined on speech sound disorder and parental anxiety, no research specifically focusing on this issue could be found. It is thought that this study will contribute to deepening our understanding of the impact on parents of children with speech sound disorders and may guide special education centers and experts in structuring strategies when dealing with parents of children with speech sound disorders. Increased anxiety levels of parents may cause their positive thoughts and interactions regarding their parenting role to decrease. Having an anxious attitude can seriously affect the mental health of both parent and child and negatively affect the lives of both parties in the long run. It is also expected that the findings will help develop support programs and services for parents. Method: Parents of children diagnosed with speech sound disorder between the ages of 2.0-6.11 (n:75) and parents of typically developing children (n:75) participated in the study. In order to collect data in the study, "Informed Participant Consent Form" was given to the parents for voluntary participation and the "State and Trait Anxiety Scale (STAI)" was used to determine the anxiety levels of the parents. SST, a Turkish standardized test of phonology was administered to evaluate children's speech intelligibility, AGTE, a test of development widely used in Turkey to determine children's development, and TEDIL, a standardized test of language development was used to determine children's language level. Results: When the findings obtained from the study revealed that both trait and state anxiety levels of the parents of children with speech sound disorders were significantly higher from the anxiety levels of the parents of typically developing children. (p<0,01). Also, parents within middle income levels demonstrated significantly higher state and trait anxiety than the high income parents. Difficulty of availability of a speech and language terapist significantly increased state (p<0,01) and trait (p<0,05) anxiety levels of the parents as well. The length of therapy, the age of children receiving therapy and the number of children parents had showed no significant differences. Conclusion: As a result of the research, the state and trait anxiety scale scores of parents whose children were diagnosed with speech sound disorder were significantly higher than the state and trait anxiety scale scores of parents whose children were typically developing.

Keywords

speech sound disorder, speech language therapy, anxiety level

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