Speech developmental delay in preschool children. Evaluation of screening with anamnesis questions

Background: In western societies, delay of speech development is frequent and important as it may affect the entire development of a child. Therefore, early diagnosis and treatment is of outstanding relevance. For screening purposes in clinical practice, questionnaires focussing on speech development are assumed to be both valid and economic assessment tools. In this study, results of a questionnaire based on "milestones in early childhood development" as previously reported by Michaelis for German children were compared with results of systematic German speech development tests. Patients and methods: In a retrospective study, data were collected from 25 German preschool children. Their parents had completed a questionnaire on their child's development prior to the examination with 4 questions focussing on speech development. In this report, the answers on these 4 questions are evaluated against the background of systematic German speech development tests, i.e. the H-SET® and PLAKSS®, and an unsystematic examination by an experienced speech and language phonologist. Results: The questionnaire had a sensitivity of 50% and a specificity of 7%. The positive and negative predictive values were 55.9% and 5%, respectively. Conclusion: A questionnaire based on "milestones in early childhood development" as previously reported by Michaelis for German children, is clinically invalid for screening speech development in preschool children. © Springer Medizin Verlag 2009.