Speech Delay Research

So what do I do in an anxiety crisis? I research and educate myself.

I read a lot of question/answer strings by moms and professionals. People were very opinionated on this subject but there were two general themes: one day it will click and he will catch up or early intervention is best.  But this just led to more questions really.

One enlightening speech language pathologist gave these specifics to watch for in determining whether intervention was necessary:

• Is the child able to communicate in other ways?
• Does the child gesture or point to objects when referring to them (not just grab)?
• Does the child make language sounds?
• Does the child socially engage?
• Does the child turn toward sound?
• Does the child explore his/her surroundings appropriately?
• Does the child seem to have a desire to communicate and interacts in other ways?

I thought these were good, leading, and specific questions that I could wrap my head around. The lists of what my child should be doing drove me crazy… “the child should have up to 20 words.” What the heck is that. First off, I don’t count my child’s words. Second, his words change- is this like rolling over… once he’s done it once we know he can do it and it doesn’t matter if he repeats the word? Not helpful. The above questions made sense to me.

Then I just wanted to hear from the professionals. If I go to a specialist, what are they going to look for? And I stumbled upon www.asha.org. Now we were talking (no pun intended).

Evidently there is receptive language (understanding words) and expressive language (saying words to communicate). The presence or absence of receptive language can be an indicator of whether it is a speech delay or just a late bloomer. They give the following factors:

§  Receptive language: Understanding language generally precedes expression and use. Some studies that have followed-up late-talking children in this age range have found, after a year, that age-appropriate receptive language discriminated late bloomers from children who had true language delays. Other researchers doing follow-up studies included only children whose receptive language was within normal limits because they believed that delay in this area was likely to produce worse outcomes.

§  Use of gestures: One study has found that the number of gestures used by late-talking children with comparably low expressive language can indicate later language abilities. Children with a greater number of gestures used for different communication purposes are more likely to catch up with peers. Such a result is supported by findings that some older children who are taught non-verbal communication systems show a spontaneous increase in oral communication.

§  Age of diagnosis: More than one study has indicated that the older the child at time of diagnosis, the less positive the outcome. Obviously, older children in a study have had a longer time to bloom than younger children but have not done so, indicating that the language delay may be more serious. Also, if a child is only developing slowly during an age range when other children are rapidly progressing (e.g. 24-30 months) that child will be falling farther behind.

§  Progress in language development: Although a child may be slow in language development, he or she should still be doing new things with language at least every month. New words may be added. The same words may be used for different purposes. For example, "bottle" may one day mean "That is my bottle," the next, "I want my bottle," and the next week, "Where is my bottle? I don't see it." Words may be combined into longer utterances ("want bottle" "no bottle"), or such longer utterances may occur more often.

http://www.asha.org/public/speech/disorders/lateblooming.htm

Of course they emphasize over and over again- these are just general guidelines, NOT mandates of what is or isn’t present as far as a true language problem.  But it’s a start. It is information. And I appreciate it.

Most of what I found made me, in my particular situation feel better (whether it should or not). At least now I felt like I was making an (limited) educated decision. It was time to just wait and watch. It was time to encourage and see what my kid was made of. It was time to let him do what he naturally does and not make him feel bad for that.

And soon that waiting would pay off.

Soon he would start using his words.