Language delay in children manifests their communication disorders. When it continues, they tend to miss out on achieving developmental milestones that eventually impact their social interactions, behavior, and academic skills.
Typical Age-appropriate Language Developmental Milestones:
Speech and language skill acquisition goes through stages. At the time of birth, a baby cries and that baby starts cooing and smiling in response to you two or three month apart and babbles, turns and looks at new sounds when the baby is six month old. When at around eight month, responding to names and pats is normal at the age of eight, similar to shouting to attract attention and saying a syllable or two repeatedly are appropriate traits at the age of ten.
Saying one to two words, recognizing names, imitating familiar sounds and pointing to words are a few characteristics of a 12-month child while that child should be able to understand simple instructions, use the words like “mumma” and a few other words during the age of up to 17-month. From the age of 18-month, the ability to use 10 to 20 words including names and knowing names of body parts should naturally develop.
| Birth | Cries |
| 2-3 months | Coos and smiles in response to you |
| 6-month | Babbles, turns and looks at new sounds |
| 8-month | Responds to names, pats |
| 10-month | Shouts to attract attention, says a syllable or two |
| 12-month | Says 1 to 2 words, recognizes names |
| 18-month | Uses 10 to 20 words, learns names of body parts |
Causes for Language Delay in Children
A language delay can be receptive, expressive, and or a combination of both. Difficulty in understanding language is due to receptive language deficit while verbal communication difficulty is caused by expressive language disorder.
Language delays may happen due to hearing impairment, autism, intellectual disability, and psychosocial issues. Neurological problems like cerebral palsy, muscular dystrophy, traumatic brain injury can work as compelling causes to hinder your child from attaining the developmental milestones.
What if My Child is Not Meeting These Milestones?
Talk to your pediatrician immediately. The sooner, the better.
There are several potential risk factors for speech and language delays that include premature birth, low birth weight, family history of speech and language disorders, etc.
How are Speech and Language Issues Diagnosed?
First, a doctor may conduct a comprehensive assessment of your child’s expressive and receptive language to determine if your child has language delay and to what extent. Then, it may follow verbal and non-verbal communication tests, by using the standardized methods. The next step may begin with the diagnosis of a child’s hearing ability.
Treatment
After diagnosis, the treatment plan for your child’s speech and language delay may involve speech and language therapy. And the therapy should begin as soon as possible to impact positive outcomes.
Speech and Language Intervention Program Includes:
Some common speech language intervention programs are PROMPT therapy, Hanen program, augmentative and alternative communication, feeding therapy, lego therapy, etc.
Speech and Language Therapy at Hope AMC Medical Center in Dubai
Our highly-qualified pediatric speech and language therapists helped hundreds of children to get through speech language and literacy issues. We work closely with parents and families of a child to power up the child’s confidence and accelerate the language development process.
Learn what more ways our speech and language therapy program can impact positive outcomes of your child’s language development and literacy issues.
