Parent perspectives of ear health and the relationship with children’s speech and language in the longitudinal study of Indigenous children

Journal article


Morrow, Anita, Orr, Neil, Nash, Kai, Coates, Harvey, Cross, Cara, Evans, John Robert, Gunasekera, Hasantha, Harkus, Samantha, Harrison, Linda J., McLeod, Sharynne, McMahon, Catherine, Neal, Katie, Salins, Andrea and Macniven, Rona. (2023). Parent perspectives of ear health and the relationship with children’s speech and language in the longitudinal study of Indigenous children. Children. 10(1), pp. 1-13. https://doi.org/10.3390/children10010165
AuthorsMorrow, Anita, Orr, Neil, Nash, Kai, Coates, Harvey, Cross, Cara, Evans, John Robert, Gunasekera, Hasantha, Harkus, Samantha, Harrison, Linda J., McLeod, Sharynne, McMahon, Catherine, Neal, Katie, Salins, Andrea and Macniven, Rona
Abstract

Health and well-being are holistic concepts that are perceived to be inseparable for Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander peoples. We examined relationships between parent-reported ear symptoms for 787 Indigenous children at two time points (age 2–3 years, age 4–5 years) and two parent-reported speech and language outcomes one year later (age 5–6 years). Most parents (80.2%) reported no concern about their child’s expressive language and (93.8%) receptive language. Binary logistic regression models examined ear health as a predictor of children’s expressive and receptive speech and language adjusting for sociodemographic and health covariates. For children without parent-reported ear symptoms, there were lower odds of parental concern about expressive speech and language (aOR = 0.45; 95% CI 0.21–0.99) and receptive language (aOR = 0.24; 95% CI 0.09–0.62). Parents were less likely to have concerns about the child’s expressive speech and language if their child was female, lived in urban or regional areas, had excellent or very good global health, or had no disability when aged 2–5 years. Since parent-reported ear health and speech and language concerns were related, Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander children could benefit from culturally safe, strength-based, and family-centered integrated speech, language, and ear health services.

KeywordsAboriginal and Torres Strait Islander; Indigenous; parents; speech; language; communication; hearing; child; preschool; cohort studies
Year01 Jan 2023
JournalChildren
Journal citation10 (1), pp. 1-13
PublisherMDPI AG
ISSN2227-9067
Digital Object Identifier (DOI)https://doi.org/10.3390/children10010165
Web address (URL)https://www.mdpi.com/2227-9067/10/1/165
Open accessPublished as ‘gold’ (paid) open access
Research or scholarlyResearch
Page range1-13
Publisher's version
License
File Access Level
Open
Output statusPublished
Publication dates
Online14 Jan 2023
Publication process dates
Accepted12 Jan 2023
Deposited16 Aug 2024
Additional information

Copyright: © 2023 by the authors.
Licensee MDPI, Basel, Switzerland.

This article is an open access article
distributed under the terms and
conditions of the Creative Commons
Attribution (CC BY) license (https://
creativecommons.org/licenses/by/
4.0/).

Funding: Footprints in Time—The Longitudinal Study of Indigenous Children (LSIC) is funded by the Australian Government Department of Social Services.

Place of publicationSwitzerland
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