[Slight cerebral dysfunction and disorders of speech (author's transl)]

206 "healthy" children of pre-school age submitted to a pluridimensional diagnosis, including 43 children with slight cerebral dysfunction, were investigated for phoniatric abnormities in a double blind study. These 43 children with slight cerebral dysfunction were seen to present more frequent pathological findings by far than the comparative group of 163 healthy children. An impairment of the function of speech was altogether found in 53.2 per cent of these 43 children. 6.9 per cent stutted (only 1 per cent of the total population stutter), in one third the development of speech was delayed. A particularly striking feature was the frequent occurrence of a disordered coordination of the tongue (27.9 per cent). In these children treatment must not be limited to the disorders of speech alone but must take the underlying disease into account.