Speech & Language delay in kids .

If your child has turned 2 years old and yet not uttering a word , it’s a big reason to worry. Parents in India take a very casual approach regarding this matter and wants to wait for 5-6 more months to let their child speak .

There are two reasons behind it :-

1.      Influence of Grand parents/lack of knowledge.

2.      No time due to very busy schedule.

But my friends its too late , you should check the milestones and immediately rush to a doctor for an advise.

In this article I have listed mile stones so that parents can check at home and configure weather to visit a doctor or not.

• From 1 to 3 months of age, babies cry and coo.
• At 4 to 6 months of age, babies sigh, grunt, gurgle, squeal, laugh and make different crying sounds.
• Between 6 and 9 months, babies babble in syllables and start imitating tones and speech sounds.
• By 12 months, a baby’s first words usually appear, and by 18 months to 2 years children use around 50 words and will start putting two words together into a short sentences.
• From 2-3 years, sentences extend to 4 and 5 words. Children can recognise and identify almost all common objects and pictures, as well as use pronouns (I, me, he, she) and some plurals. Strangers can understand most words.
• From 3-5 years, conversations become longer, and more abstract and complex.
• By the time a child turns 5, they usually have a 2,500 word vocabulary and talk in complete, grammatically correct sentences. They ask a lot of ‘why?’, ‘what?’ and ‘who?’ questions.

Source:- https://www.pregnancybirthbaby.org.au/speech-development-in-children.

Speech delay in kids is because of the following factors:-

1.      Problems with a child's tongue or the roof of the mouth, which makes it hard to form sounds and words.

2.      Hearing loss (Kids who have had a lot of ear infections can have hearing problems.)

3.      A learning disability.

4.      A developmental disorder, like cerebral palsy or autism spectrum disorder.

5.      No Medical Problem / Over pampered child.

In this topic my aim is to focus on speech delay in kids due to no medical problem, language development in child is in two stages :-   

1. Receptive language means the ability to understand information. It involves understanding the words, sentences and meaning of what others say or what is read.

2. Expressive language is the child's ability to express themselves. As children improve their language skills, they tend to understand more than they can say.

A checklist is provided to check the language delay in kids.

If hearing is normal and there is no other medical problem you should immediately consult a speech & Language Pathologist (SLP) and as per their advice start speech therapy at an earliest.

Hope this article is useful.