Pragmatic difficulties in Egyptian Arabic-speaking children with mild intellectual disability

Intellectual disability (ID) is a developmental condition with deficits in intellectual functioning and adaptive skills, such as language and communication. Mild intellectual disability has an IQ score of 50-55 to approximately 65-69. Aim of such study was to assess pragmatic skills in Egyptian Arabic-speaking children with mild intellectual disability. The study a Case-Control research on 100 Egyptian Arabic-speaking children of both sexes from the outpatient Phoniatric in Beni-Suef University Hospital, and was divided into 2 equal groups: Group (A) mild intellectual disability how was diagnosed by using DSM-V. Group (B) are healthy children with average IQ and with no history of DLD. All subjects will be submitted to IQ assessment, Modified preschool language scale, SB-5, and Egyptian Arabic Pragmatic Language Test (EAPLT). Our results showed that the mean of IQ, total language age and pragmatic skills in patient group is lower than control group with high significant difference (P value <0.01). Eye contact, respond to greeting, body position, melody of voice, volume of voice, looking at distant object, facial expression and pointing at distant object were significantly higher in controls than cases. The mean Subtotal score was significantly higher in controls than cases. Objective functions and its score, managing conversation, intentional communication, narrative skills and pragmatic skills total score were significantly higher in controls than cases (p-value<0.001). There was a significant positive linear correlation between the pragmatic skill total score with the IQ test and the total language score in cases but not in controls