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Parent perspectives of ear health and the relationship with children’s speech and language in the longitudinal study of Indigenous children
Morrow, Anita Orr, Neil Nash, Kai Coates, Harvey Cross, Cara Evans, John Robert Gunasekera, Hasantha Harkus, Samantha Harrison, Linda J. McLeod, Sharynne
Morrow, Anita
Orr, Neil
Nash, Kai
Coates, Harvey
Cross, Cara
Evans, John Robert
Gunasekera, Hasantha
Harkus, Samantha
Harrison, Linda J.
McLeod, Sharynne
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.
Keywords
Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander, Indigenous, parents, speech, language, communication, hearing, child, preschool, cohort studies
Date
2023
Type
Journal article
Journal
Book
Volume
10
Issue
1
Page Range
1-13
Article Number
ACU Department
Faculty of Education and Arts
Collections
Relation URI
Source URL
Event URL
Open Access Status
Published as ‘gold’ (paid) open access
License
CC BY 4.0
File Access
Open
Notes
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.
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.