Specificity and developmental consequences of speech loss in children with pervasive developmental disorders

Speech loss (SL) was compared in 276 children who had pervasive developmental disorders (PDD) with 62 children with intellectual disabilities without PDD. Speech loss seems relatively specific to PDD because it is significantly more common in children with PDD (26.1%, 72/276) than in those with intellectual disabilities (1.6%, 1/62). In three PDD categories, speech loss occurred in all the 12 children with disintegrative psychosis, 35/149 (23.5%) children with infantile autism and 25/115 (21.7%) children with other PDD. Children with pervasive developmental disorders and speech loss had spoken significantly earlier yet developed less satisfactorily after speech loss than those without it. Speech loss seems fairly specific to PDD and is indicative of unfavorable intellectual development in children with PDD.