The effect of schistosomiasis and soil-transmitted helminths on expressive language skills among African preschool children

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Abstract

Background

Schistosomiasis and soil transmitted helminths (STH) have been associated with compromised child development. We determined the effect of schistosomiasis and STH on expressive language skills among isiZulu speaking preschool children focusing on the variables: age, gender, school and stunting.

Methods

We quantitatively compared the performance of a cohort of infected and non-infected children using a 2 phased approach. In phase 1 infected children were treated with praziquantel and matched with non-infected children and both groups were tested for expressive language performance. In phase 2 both groups of children were re-tested for expressive language skills using a similar but modified test. The participants were 106 preschool children between the age of 4 and 6 years, 11 months. The Developmental Language Test was adapted as a linguistically and culturally appropriate tool for assessing isiZulu expressive language skills.

Results

The overall performance of the children in phases 1 and 2 were statistically similar. There was significant Pearson’s correlation of expressive language skills to age (0.002, P < 0.01), schistosomiasis i.e. vocabulary 1 (0.024, P < 0.05) and narrative skills (0.001, P < 0.01) and soil-transmitted helminths i.e. vocabulary 1 (0.006, P < 0.05), colours (0.029, P < 0.05) and narrative skills (0.001, P < 0.01) in phase 2 with small to high Cohen’s d effect size for various language subtests.

Conclusion

We concluded that even mild schistosomiasis and STH may compromise the performance of preschool children on expressive language. However poor ability in following instructions may have contributed to general poor performance across the two groups tested. Diet, school effect and stunting did not influence the performance of the children on expressive language.

Supplementary Information

The online version contains supplementary material available at 10.1186/s12879-022-07260-2.

Related collections

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Author and article information

Contributors

Xolisile I. Mazibuko:

ORCID: http://orcid.org/0000-0002-0523-2391

mazxoli@gmail.com , mazibukox2@ukzn.ac.za

Moses Chimbari:

ORCID: http://orcid.org/0000-0001-8109-8801

Chimbari@ukzn.ac.za

Journal

Journal ID (nlm-ta): BMC Infect Dis

Journal ID (iso-abbrev): BMC Infect Dis

Title: BMC Infectious Diseases

Publisher: BioMed Central (London )

ISSN (Electronic): 1471-2334

Publication date (Electronic): 18 March 2022

Publication date PMC-release: 18 March 2022

Publication date Collection: 2022

Volume: 22

Electronic Location Identifier: 264

Affiliations

GRID grid.16463.36, ISNI 0000 0001 0723 4123, Present Address: School of Nursing and Public Health, , College of Health Sciences, University of KwaZulu-Natal UKZN, ; George Campbell Building, Howard College Campus, 4001 Durban, South Africa

Author information

Xolisile I. Mazibuko http://orcid.org/0000-0002-0523-2391

Moses Chimbari http://orcid.org/0000-0001-8109-8801

Article

Publisher ID: 7260

DOI: 10.1186/s12879-022-07260-2

PMC ID: 8931967

PubMed ID: 35303827

SO-VID: fc98f7ae-fb66-4c58-a547-30a967932ebc

License:

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