The effect of language and cognitive skills on mathematics performance in childhood endocrine diseases

It is known that children diagnosed with endocrine disorders may not show typical development and may have difficulties in language, academic and cognitive skills along with social-emotional problems. In this study, children with endocrine disorders were compared with their normally developing peers in terms of language, cognition, mathematical skills and psychosocial characteristics. The aim of this study was to identify possible therapeutic needs in the areas of language, cognition and mathematical skills of children with endocrine disorders who experience school failure. In this way, early evaluation of speech and language disorders and planning of intervention will be possible. Fifteen children diagnosed with endocrine disease and 15 healthy developing children participated in the study. The participants were administered the Turkish School Age Language Development Test (TODIL), Turkish Nonsense Word Repetition Test (TAST), Turkish Multilingual Sentence Repetition Test (LITMUS-TR), Wechsler Intelligence Scale for Children (WISC-R), Problem Solving Test (PST), Anxiety and Depression Scale in Children-Revised (ADAS-R), Coopersmith Self-Esteem Inventory, Behavior Assessment Scale in Children and Adolescents Aged 4-18 Years were administered. SPSS (version 25) package program was used for data analysis. The significance value of p<.005 was taken into consideration in the analysis. The data obtained from the study show that children with endocrine disease show lower performance in language, cognition and mathematical skills compared to their healthy peers, while they do not differ in terms of social emotional status evaluated by psychological scales.