Patterns of social interaction in families of children with Expressive Language Delay

Abstract

There are two types of languages one is receptive and the other one is expressive. The lack in sufficient social interaction of parents with their children although normal in all developmental milestones causes a delay in their expressive language.Objective: The objective of the present study was to determine the different patterns of soial interaction used by families that are responsible for the development of Expressive Language Delay in children. Methods: Comparitive Cross sectional survey was used for this study. The parents of 100 children from Lahore, of which 50 were parents of normally speaking children and 50 were parents of children with expressive language delay was taken as sample. These parents were asked to fill the questionairre accordingly that consists of different statements regarding their social patterns used by them to interact with their children. Results: Results indicated that there were significant differences with a p-value of 0.01 between the patterns used by parents of normally speaking children than those of expressive language delayed children. The mean values of excessive screen time of children with expressive language delay and normally speaking were 1.9600 and 4.0200 with standard deviations of 1.22824 and 0.84491 respectively. There were also insignificant differences with the p-value <0.01 in habits including reading picture books, using simple sentences and abrupt response to new things happen of parents with normally speaking children than with the parents of expressive language delayed children. Conclusion: It is concluded that there is a difference between interactional patterns of parents of children with expressive language delay than those with normally speaking children that are the main causes of developemnt of expressive language delay in these children.