Interesting speech delay article

MPSW

In today's New York Times ... article here.

stephm0188

Thanks!

susanmosley

GREAT article.

As an SLP, i want to give that article a big hug.

I think the most important part and the reason to contact an SLP when there is a delay is to assess the WHY a child isn't meeting milestones.

An 18 month old can only have 4 words and be completely typically developing or can show significant delays.  And the SLPs have spent years studying exactly that.

Language is very complex and has many underlying skills necessary for normal development.  Some people seem to get so bothered by the milestones and think it is a simple check list and that pedis and SLPs are just looking at a checklist to determine if services are needed and if there is in fact a delay or disorder.  If it were that simple, they wouldn't  be needed.  An SLP can analyze the child's language - THAT is their job....not to just look at a piece of paper and mark yes/no.  The missing milestones or not having X words by X age is simply the red flags or first tip to have someone dive further into the complex communication development of a child.

Great article. 

redstars93

Thanks for the link!

mrsransom

My son is 16 months old & says nothing other than mama & dada.  The doctor said that if he isn't saying 3 real words by 18 months, he will be referred to a specialist...so that article kind of scares me!!  He acts like a completely normal toddler & babbles all the time, but no real words!

susanmosley

mrsransom:

My son is 16 months old & says nothing other than mama & dada.  The doctor said that if he isn't saying 3 real words by 18 months, he will be referred to a specialist...so that article kind of scares me!!  He acts like a completely normal toddler & babbles all the time, but no real words!

Don't be scared. They can help.

And as I said already in this thread, the explanation for why he only has 2 words is what is important.  If he has all of the underlying skills and is following a normal language development trajectory, all could be just fine.

There is a lot to speech and language development that precedes the actual speaking part.  That is why you would want a specialist to help you determine where the breakdown is.  They know what to look for.

GL! 

mrsransom

Thank you!   It's so hard not to worry that something is wrong though!  I do hope that I get some answers, & that everything is okay!

cbwm

Great article!

The problem I'm running into is that these articles don't take into account hearing problems (in our case, from chronic ear infections for 7 months), so it's hard to determine what is normal for DS in comparison, you know?

susanmosley

cbwm:

Great article!

The problem I'm running into is that these articles don't take into account hearing problems (in our case, from chronic ear infections for 7 months), so it's hard to determine what is normal for DS in comparison, you know?

But even if you have hearing problems that are resolved, intervention can help close the gap quicker and an SLP knows what aspects of speech and language are affected by the hearing loss - for example, the pragmatics portion (social use of language) is probably completely typical, but the morphology, syntax, semantics, and phonology will be affected.  Also, some speech sounds have likely been heard, while high frequency sounds may not have been.  Valuable info.  GL! 

trizzie

cbwm:

Great article!

The problem I'm running into is that these articles don't take into account hearing problems (in our case, from chronic ear infections for 7 months), so it's hard to determine what is normal for DS in comparison, you know?

I agree with this completely.  DS couldn't hear from 10 months to 20 months.  He is getting speech therapy from ECI now, but articles like this sometimes stress me out.  (Though I do think they are valuable).