*adapted from teachmetotalk.com
Early speech-language skills unfold in a predictable pattern and include how a child learns to:
INTERACT with others UNDERSTAND what words mean EXPRESS intentions with gestures or words PRODUCE speech sounds others can understand
A problem in any one of these areas can result in speech-language delay or disorder.
Seeking out and responding to other people is a skill we want to see develop in infancy. We want to see babies:
Even though they’re busy by nature, toddlers with typically developing language skills are not difficult to engage. Toddlers should:
If your child is doing these things, her social skills are developing nicely and not a factor in late talking.
Red Flags with Interacting Skills
What You Can Do To Improve Interaction
Cognition and Receptive Language
Red Flags for Cognitive & Receptive Language Delays
A child’s ability to understand and respond to language is a factor which helps us determine if a child has a more significant developmental issue or is just a late talker.
What You Can Do To Improve Understanding
Expressive Skills More Than Talking!
Before we hear words from a child, we always see other kinds of “communicative intent” emerge first. “Communicative intent” means that you can see that a child is trying to communicate with you or tell you something. Toddlers first begin to do this by crying intentionally or whining, then they advance to vocalizing purposefully, often by grunting or using single syllables that sound like commands, such as “Da!”
Toddlers who are moving along with expressive language will begin to use purposeful gestures, like reaching for you or trying to direct your actions. Those kinds of body movements turn into real gestures that we recognize as communicative, such as waving bye-bye, blowing a kiss or pointing to get you to look at something they see. All of these gestures begin around the age of twelve months, when a child learns to imitate your actions.
Gestures are an important predictor for language. Typically, gestures emerge just before true words!
Red Flags for Expressive Delays
If your child is over two and is still not talking or only says a handful of words, there is an expressive language delay.
What You Can Do To Help at Home
Teach a child to imitate actions during play. Little games like “Give Me 5” or songs with hand motions like “If You’re Happy and You Know It” are critical first steps to helping a child learn to talk. He needs to begin to “do his part” during the game.
Introducing simple sign language is a life saver for many families and toddlers! Try signs for things he loves or requests like “more” and “please.”
Many times single words are too difficult for late talkers. Try FUN play sounds like animal and car noises and encourage her to repeat those silly sounds after you as you play together.
Simplify what you say to your child so that your child can imitate words. Speak in mostly single, familiar words when you’re trying to encourage him to repeat you.
Focus on words your child needs to say to get what she wants like words for toys, food and events. Words for colors, shapes, numbers, and letters aren’t important for late talkers!
Children don’t need to just learn to talk, they need to know what those words mean and use those words to communicate with others.
Intelligibility Not Necessarily “Adult Sounding” Speech
Most toddlers substitute sounds and simplify words as they learn to talk. Many children will continue to substitute later- developing consonant sounds (r, l, th) until they’re 6 or 7.
Even when a child’s speech contains some sound errors, a parent should understand at least half of what a 2 year-old says and nearly all of what a 3 year-old says. We do not expect unfamiliar adults to understand 100% of what a child says until he’s 5. Even then there may be some sound substitutions.
Children with muscle tone differences that have impacted their feeding skills will also have difficulty being understood when they are learning to talk.
CAUTION: When a child talks in what a parent might call “his own language” or uses long strings of unintelligible speech, this is jargon. Jargon is a part of normal expressive development, but when jargon persists past age 2 and the child is not using very many single words you do understand, this is usually a problem related to language development rather than how a child pronounces words.
What toddlers try to say is much more important than how they actually say it!
Red Flags For Speech Development
Even though we do not expect that everyone would understand 100% of what a child says until he’s older, there are characteristics, even before age three, that tell us that a child may have a significant speech sound delay or disorder.
If no one understands the child, even his or her parents, that’s extremely frustrating for everyone – especially for the child!
What You Can Do To Help at Home
Avoid overcorrecting a new talker’s word attempts. Focus on the intent of the child’s message.
Don’t repeat a child’s errors back to them. If a child says, “uh” for cup, say, “Cup! Here’s your cup!” Many toddlers need practice hearing words produced correctly before they recognize an error in their own speech.
Practice a new sound alone only a few times, then quickly move the new sound to a word.
Some toddlers will respond and correct their mistakes when you ask them to repeat words as you slowly model the correct way to pronounce words. Toddlers with developmental delays may not be able to do this until after age 3.
Negative attention and overemphasizing speech sounds may stall progress in toddlers who are new communicators.
Focus on talking and communicating rather than perfect speech with late talkers!
Don’t target speech intelligibility as the primary focus for therapy until a child’s language skills are close to an age- appropriate level.
We always want to prioritize, recognize, and reinforce overall communication skills in late talking toddlers. Accuracy with speech sounds should be our least important goal for children under 3.
Milestones Communication Skills
Here’s a nice, short checklist adapted from Babytalk. Quick reminder…milestones aren’t an “average” age. This list, like other milestone checklists, notes when MOST babies in the age range (around 90%) have mastered the skill. While a child who is not doing these things isn’t officially behind, there is cause for concern. The skills listed here are the end of the age range for typical development noted with the word “By __ months.” Be sure you’re interpreting this important information correctly!