Uno studio epidemiologico sui disturbi del linguaggio e della comunicazione in età prescolare

Difficulties in language acquisition are the most frequent cause of concern and referral to the child neuropsychiatric services in the preschool years. They also represent a well established risk factor for later difficulties in literacy. Unfortunately epidemiological data in Italian children on the prevalence of language and communication problems are very scarce. Our study aimed at obtaining data in a large Italian population (1189) of kindergarten children using a check- list (CCC-2) specifically addressed to language and communication in familiar environments. Teachers, trained on the use of the check-list by the experimenters, filled the check-list. The results show a prevalence rate of children at risk of Specific Language impairment of 4,8% among children with Italian as L1 and a much higher prevalence of 18% among children with Italian as L2. As far as children at risk of autism spectrum disorder and pragmatic impairment are concerned our data show a very high prevalence rate of 7%, probably due to a high incidence of false positive. We conclude that, despite some limitations, the CCC-2 may be usefully applied in other epidemiologic studies and before and after training studies on language and communication in kindergarten, studies aimed at preventing later literacy problems in primary school in children with language and communication difficulties.