Association between infant and young child feeding patterns and speech and language disorders

Introduction. Feeding patterns include manners in which a child is fed during infancy and early childhood in order to provide him with appropriate nutrients that will enable his proper growth and development. The purpose of the present study was to determine the association between the dominant feeding patterns in early childhood and the manifestation of speech and language disorders in children aged 3 to 6 years. Material and Methods. A crosssectional study was conducted during 2020 - 2021 and it included 100 children of typical development, aged 3 to 6 years. The research used the Child Development Inventory, as a developmental screening instrument. The questionnaire on feeding patterns was designed for the purpose of this research. For data entry and processing, the Statistical Package for the Social Sciences 20.0 software was used. Results. There were no significant differences between the age categories of children in terms of deviations in the development of expressive and receptive speech. Most of the examined children (55%) were bottle-fed, whereas the remaining 45% were breastfed. A significantly higher percentage of bottle-fed children showed a deviation in the development of expressive and receptive speech compared to children who were breastfed for at least the first 6 months (74.5% versus 8.9%). Conclusion. Bottle-fed children showed a greater number of deviations in the development of both expressive and receptive speech, compared to breastfed children. Deviations in speech and language development were registered at each examined age, which means that speech and language disorders are not detected and treated in a timely manner.