Speech Therapy for a Child with Neurosarcoidosis: A Case Report

Abstract

Introduction: Sarcoidosis is a multisystem granulomatous disorder with an unidentified origin. The prevalence of sarcoidosis in children is rare and also its frequency is unknown. There is some evidence of central nervous system (CNS) involvement in patients with sarcoidosis. The effect of rehabilitation, especially speech therapy, in these patients has not been reported before. This study reported the speech and language characteristics of a child with neurosarcoidosis before, during, and after speech therapy by formal and informal speech and language assessments.Case Report: The case was a 4-year-old boy with neurosarcoidosis. The language comprehension and expression skills of the child were delayed and weak in comparison to their normal peers. During speech therapy, the child's language comprehension and expression skills were improving, which might indicate the effectiveness of speech therapy. The improvements in the child's language abilities were seen only during speech therapy, while after speech therapy, his language skills, speech intelligibility, and verbal output showed deterioration to some extent. Unfortunately, not only the improvement of the child's language was not maintained after the speech therapy, but also this decline was associated with the peak of the child's disease.Conclusion: To conclude, more studies are needed about the time of providing speech therapy and its dose in children with neurosarcoidosis at different phases of disease progression.

Keywords

• neurosarcoidosis
• speech therapy
• language development
• pediatric
• case report