Original scientific paper
Correlation between Balance Ability and Speech-Language Development in Children
Tatjana Adamović
; Life Activities Advancement Center, Belgrade, Serbia and Institute for Experimental Phonetics and Speech Pathology, Belgrade, Serbia
Rade Kosanović
; »Zvezdara« Clinical Hospital Center, Clinic of Otorhinolaryngology, Belgrade, Serbia and University of Belgrade, Faculty of Dental Medicine, Belgrade, Serbia
Dejan Madić
; University of Novi Sad, Faculty of Sport and Physical Education, Novi Sad, Serbia
Ksenija Ribarić-Jankes
; University of Zagreb, School of Medicine, Zagreb, Croatia
Mirjana Sovilj
; Life Activities Advancement Center, Belgrade, Serbia and Institute for Experimental Phonetics and Speech Pathology, Belgrade, Serbia
Sanja Đoković
; University of Belgrade, Faculty for Special Education and Rehabilitation, Belgrade, Serbia
Abstract
The longitudinal study was conducted in order to establish whether the success rate of refl exes related to maintaining
balance at birth is in correlation with the success rate of maintaining balance in early childhood, as well as to examine
the correlation of a certain level of speech and language development with the ability of maintaining balance at birth and
at the age of 5. The main study group included 54 children of both genders, aged 5.0 to 5.4, whose balance ability and
speech and language status were evaluated based on the battery of standardized tests, whereas the group of refl exes related
to the function of the vestibular sense was clinically tested on the 3rd day upon birth, within the same sample of
children. The data at birth and at the age of 5 were recorded by means of a digital camera, then scored and statistically
and descriptively processed. The research results indicated a statistically signifi cant correlation between the achieved
level of balance ability in the newborns and fi ve-year-olds, as well as between balance skills and a certain level of speech
and language development in children at the age of 5. The importance of this research lies in new knowledge in the domain
of maturation of vestubular function immediately after birth, given that this segment of physiology of a newborn has not
so far been processed in such a way, as well as in the recognition of function of the vestibular sense as another parametre
of a child’s maturation.
Keywords
maintaining balance; newborns; vestibular sysem; speech development; child
Hrčak ID:
147591
URI
Publication date:
14.7.2015.
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