Time of cooing appearance and further development of speech in children with cerebral palsy.

Purpose: The aim of the study was to determine the significance of the time of cooing appearance for further development of speech in children with infantile cerebral palsy (CP).

Material and methods: The study was performed on a group of 46 children with the pyramidal form of CP, aged 3-16 years, treated in The Department of Pediatric Neurology and Rehabilitation, Medical University of Bialystok. It included a logopaedic assessment and a history of speech development obtained from mothers.

Results: Speech development in CP children varied according to the time of cooing appearance. Particular difficulties were observed in children with delayed cooing, who usually said their first words between 2 and 5 years of age, sentences between 3 and 5 years or even later (8 or 11 years of age); 35% of these children did not use sentences at all. Moderate and severe dysarthria, limited lexical and grammatical development and problems with speech understanding of varied degree were observed.

Conclusions: Delayed cooing in CP is an important prognostic sign of further speech retardation and indicates the necessity of early logopaedic rehabilitation.