5 SIGNS YOUR CHILD COULD HAVE A communication delay

SOME EXPERT ADVICE ON WHAT SIGNS TO LOOK OUT FOR

As a parent, it can be difficult to recognise issues when it comes to our child’s speech and/or hearing. Amy Stuart, a speech pathologist at The Benevolent Society, gives advice on how assessing your child early on can help diagnose and prevent delays in communication.

By the time your child is ready for school, they should have developed the foundations needed to participate in learning in the classroom and interacting in the playground. What can sometimes happen is parents take the ‘wait and see’ approach, leading to late diagnosis and intervention for communication delay.

The earlier a child is assessed, the better chance they have at developing the foundations for lifelong learning and wellbeing. There are five signs to keep an eye out for when considering communication delays:

1. EARLY MARKERS

It’s essential for parents to remember that communication begins at birth. While a baby may not be able to talk in their first year, you want to see various communicative indicators. These can include:

• Crying differently for various needs.

• Turning and responding to the voice of others, especially loved ones.

• Being vocal and doing their cute baby babbling.

2. USE OF LANGUAGE

Babies generally use their first words around their first birthday. Words can be slow initially, but it does not take long for young children to gain momentum fast. You would expect them to be combining at least two words by their second birthday. By that stage, they would have a vocabulary of 50 to 75 single words.

3. UNDERSTANDING OF LANGUAGE

Children will understand words and phrases before using them themselves. You’ll want to see them understand familiar words starting as young as 10 months. Understanding grows rapidly, and children should follow two-step commands by the time they are 2 years old.

4. SPEECH CLARITY

Individual speech sounds develop at different ages. We are learning sounds up until the age of 8 years old. The first words will be unclear. It is not until children are using more language and having more practice that their speech will start to gain more clarity. At 3 years of age, you expect people outside the family to understand most of what your little one is saying.

5. SOCIAL SKILLS

Even when children are too young to communicate with words, you want to see that they are interested in people. Young children should be responding to the voice of others; they should be making eye contact, smiling and using gestures to communicate.

Finally, what is important to remember is that early intervention can never be too early. Your child should be reaching speech, language and hearing milestones before 18 months of age. If you have concerns and your child is older, please reach out to a professional speech pathologist for further guidance.

•For information or further support, visit benevolent.org.au