The reasons why speech development in a child is delayed can be different.
Various factors have an influence - from physiology to psychological aspects. Some of them can be corrected independently, with others you will have to seek help from a specialist, but it is extremely important to understand what “prevents” the child from speaking. Qualified assistance will be provided by a professional speech therapist-defectologist. During the initial examination, the specialist will determine the reasons why speech is delayed and suggest methods of correction.
Reason 1. Individual pace
Of course, every child is unique and must develop on their own schedule. If your baby went a month earlier than your neighbor’s son, but said the word “mom” a few weeks later, there is nothing wrong with that. Everyone has their own pace.
This delay in speech development is called tempo. With a slight delay, everything will return to normal and the child will develop his ability to speak in the same way as all children.
Just pay attention that experts “allow” only a slight lag from the norm to be attributed to individuality. Be careful!
Correction of speech pathology
If a child speaks slowly due to physiological disorders, then therapy is aimed at eliminating the underlying disease. First of all, treatment involves normalizing the functioning of the central nervous system. Complex therapy may include:
- taking medications. Strengthening and stimulating medications, as well as vitamin complexes, are selected for the child. Medicines containing glutamic acid are actively used;
- physical therapy. Water activities, swimming, massage and physiotherapeutic procedures are very effective;
- consultations with a psychotherapist. Sessions with a psychologist are also possible to overcome emotional problems. A child who spoke slowly for a long time could withdraw from society and lose self-confidence;
- educational games. The child will benefit from activities that improve motor skills, facial expressions and emotional speech. For example, children benefit from acting lessons and stage performances. The child also needs to read more, solve riddles, learn and sing rhythmic songs;
- manual labor. Assembling construction sets, embroidering and other activities help develop fine motor skills. The child's speech rate improves when learning dance moves. Physical education and sports will not be superfluous.
Of course, a child who speaks very slowly needs the help of qualified teachers and speech therapists. This is one of the most important parts of treatment.
Reason 4. Bilingual family
Bilingual children “have the right” to begin to speak with some lag behind the norm. Hearing different languages spoken around them, they find themselves in a more difficult situation than their peers who only need to master one language.
In order to correctly construct speech, a child needs to separate one language from another. This requires some time. So it is quite possible that there is a delay in the onset of speech formation, the absence of common sentences, and errors in the grammatical construction of phrases.
Stages of speech development in children from 0 to 5 years old
Every parent should know that if you don’t work with your baby and don’t develop his speech, he will never speak on his own . But it is also worth remembering that the timing of the beginning of intelligible speaking is very individual. Some children confidently pronounce words at the age of one, while others can barely form syllables at three years of age.
There are certain age indicators by which one can see a delay in speech development:
- A three-month-old baby is characterized by humming;
- A six-month-old baby is characterized by babbling;
- As a rule, girls speak their first word at ten months , but boys only at one year of age;
- At one and a half years old, the “silent one” pronounces about 10–12 words, it all depends on how his parents or teachers dealt with him;
- A two-year-old child knows almost all pronouns;
- At three years old, the baby knows about 350–400 words, he easily pronounces them and freely expresses his emotions;
- By the age of four, a child knows more than one and a half thousand words;
- At five years - more than three thousand words.
Reason 5. Stress, unfavorable psychological environment
Unfortunately, stress affects not only adults, but also children. Severe fear, an uncomfortable psychological climate in the family, even quarrels between parents can cause a delay in speech formation. Children need calm, positive emotions and a reasonable daily routine.
Strong experiences, fear, and psychological trauma can lead to stuttering and delayed speech and mental development.
Separately, it is worth highlighting the problem of “hospitalism” in children. Absent speech syndrome caused by separation from family in institutionalized children is associated with both psychological stress and communication deficits. Unfortunately, cases of this syndrome also occur in domestic children. Formal child care without established communication, love and attention from loved ones provokes developmental delays.
What to do if the child does not speak
Authors : Koval Irina
When parents come for a consultation with a speech therapist, they are often asked the question: the child is already 2 or 3 years old, but he does not speak or speaks very little - is this normal? Is there any reason to worry - maybe you just need to wait and everything will work itself out? Let's discuss this issue.
There are two groups of factors that cause delays in speech formation:
1) imperfection of social conditions of education and pedagogical errors, i.e. incorrect methods of upbringing in a family or child care institution, consisting in insufficient attention to the child on the part of adults or, conversely, in overprotection. The result is that the child does not develop the motivation for verbal communication: in the first case, he has no one to turn to, in the second, there is no need, he will be understood anyway, and everything will be done the way he wants, as quickly as possible;
2) insufficiency of the sensorimotor or neurological basis of the child’s speech. In this situation, not only changes in the conditions of education are required, but also the help of specialists - a neurologist, child psychologist, speech therapist, audiologist or teacher of the deaf. Correction of this form of speech pathology takes longer and requires more effort and attention.
In addition, if the parents of a child who has problems with speech development constantly ask him to “say”, “repeat”, then the picture of speech underdevelopment, as a rule, is aggravated by the presence of persistent speech negativism in the child, which can be expressed actively and passively, but in any case, the child refuses to speak not only on the orders of the parents, but also in any situation. Also, manifestations of speech underdevelopment are aggravated by the personal characteristics of the child, who is prone to stubbornness, self-will, and hysterical reactions.
Previously, it was believed that the main thing on which the development of speech depends is the degree of verbal communication between children and the adults around them: by listening to someone else’s speech, the child gets the opportunity to onomatopoeia, and in the process of onomatopoeia he learns to articulate syllables and words. Therefore, parents usually receive advice to talk more with their child. They redouble their efforts, trying to talk to the baby at every opportunity, but he continues to communicate with individual sounds and gestures.
What to do?
It is necessary to start working on the development of speech in a child as early as possible. The most effective period is considered to be the age from one and a half to 5 years, when speech function is actively developing.
It is important to draw the attention of parents to the fact that when communicating with a child, especially of early and early preschool age, one should not “fake” children’s speech, pronounce words distorted, or use truncated words or onomatopoeias instead of common words (“Where is the bibika?”; “Lala” wants to bye-bye?”), lisp. This will do nothing but harm to the child - “baby speech” will only inhibit the acquisition of sounds and delay the timely acquisition of vocabulary.
The child’s speech is also negatively affected by the frequent use by adults of words with diminutive or endearing suffixes, words that are inaccessible to the child’s understanding or that are complex in terms of sound and syllables.
If a child pronounces any sounds or words incorrectly, you should not imitate him, laugh, or, conversely, praise him. At the same time, it is impossible to demand the correct pronunciation of sounds at that period of the baby’s life when the process of formation of the speech apparatus is not yet completed.
Simultaneously with the development of speech, the child’s thinking, memory, and imagination develop, i.e. Speech develops and intelligence develops.
It is also necessary to remember the close connection between the functions of speech and hands. After all, finger movements and fine motor skills correlate with speech function. At the fingertips there are active points associated with the speech centers of the brain. First, subtle movements of the fingers develop, then articulation of syllables appears; all subsequent improvement of speech reactions is directly dependent on the degree of training of finger movements.
Therefore, it is necessary to start training your child’s fingers from an early age. The techniques can be very varied, but it is important that more fingers are involved in the movement and that these movements are sufficiently accurate and energetic.
Exercises to develop fine motor skills
Tear paper into small pieces (children do this with pleasure).
Sort or string large beads, fold wooden pyramids, inserts. The movements are carried out with two or three fingers.
In the future, the tasks become more complicated: fastening buttons, tying and untying knots, lacing.
It would be good to regularly massage your fingers and palms using special su-jok rings and a hedgehog ball.
Folk finger games provide very good training for finger movements (for example, “The White-sided Magpie,” “The Horned Goat is Coming,” “The Ghouls Have Arrived,” etc..). It’s better to start with the simplest ones, gradually complicating the tasks.
Speech development classes
Songs and nursery rhymes also work well. If you need to sing a nursery rhyme, don’t be shy! The baby will listen to the melody with interest and will soon try to reproduce it himself. At first he can stretch out one vowel, and later consonants, syllables, words and phrases will be added.
Read and tell children's stories and poems. Your reading should be so emotional and expressive that the child wants to listen to your intonation.
In the future, try to talk more with your child, voice (“verbalize”) all your actions, comment on what you see in the world around you, pronounce words clearly, distinctly, legibly and patiently.
If you have a feeling of anxiety about the slow formation of speech, seek advice from specialized specialists - a speech therapist, a child psychologist, a neurologist. Most likely, if specialists do not find any health problems, then speech therapists will recommend articulation gymnastics.
And finally, the most important advice: do not be annoyed or embarrassed that your child still does not speak. Your love and your patience will definitely help overcome this problem.
Good luck to you, loving and caring parents!
published 02/01/2019 09:00 updated 18/01/2019 — Pedagogy and psychology, Growth and development, Nervous, mental and psychological diseases, Speech development
Reason 11. Alalia
This term means primary underdevelopment of speech centers. Occurs as a result of damage to the cerebral cortex during early infancy or fetal development. This condition is described in more detail in the article about alalia.
Let’s just say that you won’t be able to cope with alalia on your own; be sure to seek help from specialists.
Also check if your child has echolalia.
Prognosis and prevention
If your baby was talking and then suddenly fell silent, then don’t despair. In most cases, the prognosis is very favorable. Timely correction allows you to eradicate the pathology. The exception is cases when the baby has stopped speaking words due to severe damage to the central nervous system or Landau-Kleffner syndrome.
To prevent a child from becoming silent, parents must pay special attention to his emotional state. At the first signs of stress, it is better to contact a psychologist. The child should be surrounded with care and helped to develop his speech. However, no preventive measures have been created to prevent aphasia. The only thing parents can do for their child is to undergo timely medical examinations, prevent traumatic brain injuries and severe neuroinfections.
Literature on the topic for parents
Familiarity with books is of utmost importance in speech development. The teacher suggested selecting Russian fairy tales for preschoolers:
- Pushkin;
- Tolstoy;
- Ershova.
Required reading
Also, the parent should read poems by Pushkin and Bazhov to the preschooler. Tikheyeva gives advice on teaching children to retell and teach them poetry.
Shakhnarovich A. M.
Shakhnarovich “Children’s speech in the mirror of psycholinguistics” is a collection that will help you know about various problems of speech analysis. The materials discuss such aspects of psycholinguistics as the connection between thinking and speech, thinking and communication, communicative and cognitive in speech development.
Timely diagnosis and competent correction will help to effectively correct speech defects in the baby. This will help prepare him for school. The main thing is to understand why the problem exists and solve it.
