Population Health Research Brief Series

Speech impairment is common in childhood and often goes unrecognized, but its consequences can last a lifetime. This brief describes how speech impairment before age 16 is linked to the risk of developing dementia in later life.

The authors find that adults who had speech impairment as children had a 63% higher risk of developing dementia than adults who did not have speech impairment as children.

Economic and health conditions in midlife explain only a small part of that higher risk. Screening children for speech impairment, and monitoring the cardiovascular and mental health of adults who had speech impairment as children, could help reduce their dementia risk later in life.