Speech is the sound that comes out of our mouth and when people in our surroundings finds it difficult to understand what you actually want to convey, then it’s a problem and a matter of concern too. This can be identified by various characteristics that a child often show at a certain age. Some of the distinguishingly identified speech related problems are stammering and wrong pronunciations. Language delay can be identified when child’s language is developing in right direction but slower than required.
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How to Identify Speech and Language Delay and Disorder in a Child
To identify speech and language delay in your child, you may observe if he shows these traits at a certain age. If in case your child did not cry at the time of birth then the possibilities of suffering from speech and language delay related disorders gets high. Or when he is a bit grown up then he should be responding with different expressions like cooing or crying differently in different scenarios.
Then also the child’s babbles changes after every three months from the age of three months to 11 months. During first three months, he simply babbles, then in next three months he adds rhythm to his babbles and in last three months, he still babbles but tries to imitate real speech and sometimes with expression.
Once child is a year old, he often can say a few words, recognize names and understand simple instructions. Once child grows to eighteen to twenty months, then he/she should be able to say atleast five to twenty words which may also include a few names. These are simple tests that you can observe to identify speech and language delay related problems in your child.
The child of one to two years of age should be able to say two words sentences, can wave to say good bye, can imitate familiar animals and obviously more words are added to their vocabulary. A two to three years old child can identify different body parts, can call himself as “me” instead of his name, could combine nouns and verbs, must have added around four hundred words to his vocabulary and can speak short and full sentences.
A child who is three to four years of age can tell stories and has a vocabulary of around thousand words. He should be able to say his complete name, his address and able to make plurals of the words.
If your child shows above traits as normal, then he needs to be checked for hearing related issues to identify speech and language delay related problems. If you doubt that your child has any of these issues, it’s good to take help of professionals to identify the problem. As soon as the problem gets identified, corrective actions can be quickly taken. For example, if the child shows the signs of delay in his language training although his hearing and speech works fine, then we can pay more attention to train him on his speech and bridge the gap.
Other Factors that may Hamper your Child’s Speech and Language related Growth
Other factors that need to be evaluated when you observe speech and language delay related problem in your child are whether he is suffering from an ear infection or he is subject to biological factors like fetal alcohol syndrome or genetic defects like down syndrome etc. These could also cause the speech and language delay related problems in your child.
How the Evaluation is done to Identify Speech and Language Delay
To identify speech and language delay we may have to include many standardized tests and observations. It may require several sessions to obtain enough information to make some accurate diagnosis. This may include speech-language pathologist, audiologist, psychologist, neurologist, electrophysiologist, otolaryngologist, pediatrician, nurse, and social worker. The different professional makes different contribution towards the evaluation as per their expertise.