Infant’s Late Talking May Be Early Warning

If a infant does not react to sounds, should parents be concerned? If an 18-month-old has yet to speak that precious first word, is it time to worry?

Perhaps, some specialists say.

Children who learn to speak late in their childhood may suffer severe reading and language problems in the future, said James Blinn, an adjunct professor of special education and language disorders at National University in Costa Mesa.

To help children become good learners, Blinn advises parents to pay attention to young children’s language development.

“Even for 6- to 9-month-old children, there is a lot going on receptively that is laying the foundation to future speech,” Blinn said.

An estimated 10% of the nation’s schoolchildren have language disorders, which often stem from slow speaking skills. Some have physical disabilities, others genetic and developmental disorders. Even environmental factors, such as abuse or neglect, can play a role.

Most late talkers have some form of neurological impairment or physical condition. One common yet preventable cause of speech problems is ear infections. Research has shown that children with chronic ear infections tend to have poor reading and speaking skills later on, Blinn said.

“Language is learned auditorily,” he said. “Even if a child is not speaking yet, he is absorbing sounds and ways of speech to prepare himself to speak.”

To help prevent speech impediments, Blinn advises parents to closely monitor their children’s health and development, particularly from infancy to age 5.

Blinn offers this outline to help parents measure their children’s language development:

At 6 to 9 months: Infant can turn head to the person speaking and differentiate between voices. Shows facial expressions, responds to sounds.

1 year: Starts saying first words.

2 years: Forms two-word sentences and understands simple directions. May have acquired a vocabulary of about 200 words.

3 years: Vocabulary of up to 1,000 words, ability to form longer sentences.

4 years: Can identify colors, animals; can count and sort objects. Knows pronouns, verb tenses, and speech is about 80%-90% intelligible.

Don’t panic if your child hasn’t met all these milestones right on time, Blinn cautions. These are guidelines to use while watching your child’s progress.

If the child shows consistently slow development of these skills by age 5, the child should be tested for language disorders at the school or a speech clinic. By law, public schools must provide speech therapy and testing for children who are having reading and language problems.

“The more intervention by age 5, the better the child’s prognosis will be,” Blinn said.

Here are some tips and language development activities Blinn suggests for parents and children:

* Have your child’s ears checked routinely, from birth through age 12.

* Play “hospital” and “zoo” and act out other scenarios to introduce vocabulary words to your child.

* Use puppets to promote conversation and dialogue.

* Make scrapbooks together, showing your child how to classify and sort colors, objects, and animals. Clip pictures from magazines and have your child cluster items together.

* If your child mispronounces a word or answers a question in fragmented speech, correct him by properly repeating the word, or repeating his answer in a complete sentence.

* Limit your child’s television time. Television does not stimulate high levels of language development because the child is merely a passive viewer.

* Read to your child. Books allow children to correlate words with letters and sounds. And pictures help them identify objects and build their vocabulary.