So many children across the world are showing communication delays post-Covid. Toddlers learn language by interacting with other children. Due to the pandemic, children stayed at home and got fewer opportunities to practice interactional and social skills with other children.
In this article, Sanya Modi, founder, and speech-language pathologist at Sounderic, an online speech therapy practice for children and adults, shares the five warning signs that your child might have a speech delay. Parents usually follow the “wait and see” approach when the child hasn’t achieved their speech and language milestones but it’s definitely not the best way to go ahead.
The first five years are crucial for developing speech and language in children and are called the critical periods of language learning. The number of words children regularly say at different ages varies greatly from child to child.
We suspect a speech delay when the child is not developing speech and language at an acceptable rate. We all know communication is crucial to express our needs, ideas, and thoughts. When children aren’t able to communicate their needs, they get frustrated which leads to social, emotional, and behavioural problems in children. The biggest question is how to tell if your child has a speech delay.
Parents can detect a speech delay in the child as they spend the most amount of time with the child.
Here are some signs that the child has a speech delay:
- By 12 months of age, the child is not babbling. The child does not gesture bye-bye and vocalizes. The child doesn’t understand ‘no’ (doesn’t stop the activity briefly).
Children first learn to communicate by gestures, pointing, and vocalizing. If by 1 year of age, the child isn’t able to use simple gestures, babble, or has a special name for mom or dad then the child is at risk of a speech delay. Also, note if along with the speech delay child also has delayed motor milestones.
At this stage, talk to your baby about what they are doing. Build up on what the child is saying. For ex: If the child says “aa”, you can say yes it’s an apple.
- By 18 months of age, the child should be able to say three or more meaningful words including mama or dada. Children should understand and follow simple commands like give me the toy. If your child seems to have a difficult time following verbal directions, they may have a delay.
Here, encourage ‘Pretend Play’. Get involved in your child’s favourite activities,
Follow the child’s lead while playing games.
- By 2 years of age, if the child cannot combine two words like ‘more cookie’. The child still uses gestures and pointing instead of talking and the child has trouble imitating sounds and words. Then the child can be suspected to have a speech delay. When asked to show where the dog is in the picture, the child should be able to point correctly.
Parents should really consider starting speech therapy at this stage. Learn the strategies
and exercises that can be implemented at home.
- By 3 years of age, if the child cannot have at least two back-and-forth conversations and not use any ‘Wh’ questions. Then it can be concerning. By now the child’s speech should be understandable to others outside the family as well and they should be learning new words every day.
Support your child, give them cues, and help them form sentences. Read books to the child, and create more opportunities for them to communicate.
- By 4 years of age, a child can form sentences of four or more words. They can answer ‘Wh’ questions involving simple reasoning. They have a vocabulary of more than 1500 words. They can narrate a simple story.
Read books with the child and ask them to predict what’s going to happen next in the story. Ask them questions about the characters and the plot of the story.
If you are worried that your child has a speech delay, please reach out to a speech-language pathologist for an assessment. It has been found through research that early intervention is key to achieving speech and language milestones on time.
At Sounderic, along with online speech therapy sessions, we have an excellent parent-training program to help young parents learn their child’s preferred mode of learning and encourage speech development through that.
