In recent years, according to the observations of speech therapists and defectologists, the number of children who begin to speak late has increased sharply.
Normally, speech (namely words and phrases, not babble) appears at the age of 2 years. Three-year-old children should already be able to speak in complete sentences with correct word agreement. If this does not happen, it is necessary to urgently contact specialists to identify the causes of delayed speech development and select the most effective correction program. The sooner you start correction, the faster you will achieve results. Experts divide the reasons for long-term lack of speech in children into internal and external. The first group is associated with the child’s health characteristics, the second group – with the environment in which he grows up. During the examination, first of all, they check whether everything is in order with the baby’s physical health.
Internal factors of speech absence in children
Check if your child hears normally
Children with partially or completely impaired hearing hardly perceive the sounds around them. Impaired hearing function most often occurs as a result of severe infections, prolonged otitis media, colds, and it can also occur as a result of birth trauma. If your child reacts only to loud, sharp sounds, does not hear whispers or even normal speech, he definitely needs to be shown to an otolaryngologist and have audiometry done.
Heredity
Developmental delays are often transmitted genetically, so if there has been a history of similar cases in the family, this is a cause for concern. Almost all hereditary disorders are transmitted in a more severe form. Therefore, do not listen to your relatives, they say, it will outgrow it, and go to specialists. Speech delay can also be tempo, since all children develop at different speeds. In this case, classes with a speech therapist will give the necessary impetus, and the baby will definitely speak. Important: the tempo delay allows a lag from the age norm only within 6 months.
CNS abnormalities
If a child has congenital or acquired pathologies of the nervous system, then his nerve cells stop developing, remaining young and immature. In this case, a central speech disorder, or alalia, occurs. Most alalik children begin to speak after long-term correction, but they often stutter.
Difficult pregnancy and traumatic birth
Long-term toxicosis, threat of miscarriage, Rhesus conflict, intrauterine meningitis and encephalitis, birth injuries, smoking and alcohol are the most common causes of underdevelopment of speech centers and the central nervous system.
Pathologies of the speech organs
If your baby has difficulty handling solid foods or is constantly drooling, he may have very weak maxillofacial muscles, which are an important part of the articulatory system. Also, normal speech development is hampered by a too short frenulum, malocclusion, or cleft palate. In this case, you need to contact a pediatric dentist and otolaryngologist.
Intellectual development disorder
Lack of speech at the age of 2-3 years can be a sign of delayed mental and mental development, autism spectrum disorders, Down syndrome and other serious illnesses. Only a specialist can make a diagnosis, so it is important to be examined by a psychiatrist and speech pathologist-speech pathologist, who will determine the level of development of mental functions and intelligence. If during the examination it was possible to exclude problems with the baby’s physical and mental health, then the reasons for the speech delay should be sought in the environment in which he grows up.
When silence is not golden
Problems with sound pronunciation, clarity and coherence of speech directly affect such mental processes as memory, thinking, attention, etc. This means that prolonged non-speaking leads to deeper disorders. At 4-5 years old, a non-speaking child is diagnosed with OSD - general underdevelopment of speech against the background of normal intelligence and hearing. OHP can be of 4 levels, but any of them is a reason for correction. Considering the age of the children, by this time the gap from their peers is already quite significant, so you will have to study a lot and persistently.
Social reasons for lack of speech
The baby has an interlocutor who understands him perfectly
Speech therapists note that similar children, twins, and triplets begin to speak later than children who grow up alone or who have a large age difference with their brothers and sisters. Such kids, as a rule, have their own language, and they have enough communication with each other. They can lag behind the age norm within six months.
Bilingualism
When 2 or even 3 languages are constantly heard in a family, isolating individual words from the spoken speech is not easy even for an adult, let alone a child who is just learning to speak. There are situations when parents use one language on the street and another at home. Bilingual children need time to separate languages and learn to use them, which is why they begin to speak later than their peers. They also often have serious problems when mastering written language.
Passion for “smart” toys, tablet or TV
In the game, the child must play the main role; this helps to enrich his vocabulary, the development of speech, imagination, memory, and thinking. If he becomes a passive observer and only has to press a button and watch, then this will only harm him. Limit cartoons and games on the tablet, remove toys with electronic filling, give preference to regular bears and dolls, board games, drawing and modeling.
Nervous situation in the family
Kids are very sensitive to changes in the psychological climate in the family. If parents are often nervous, quarrel in the presence of a child, because of loud sounds, a restless environment, children instinctively try to attract attention to themselves as little as possible, withdraw into themselves, and have a hard time experiencing the cries of their mother and father. The development of speech and psyche suffers from this. This state can persist for a long time, even when all the storms in the family have long calmed down.
Overprotection
Children whose parents are too fussy are simply not interested in communicating with others. Why try to say something if there are parents and grandparents who are in a hurry to predict everyone's wishes? The solution here is simple: give the child more independence and do not rush to fulfill all requests expressed by facial expressions, babble or gestures.
Pedagogical neglect
You shouldn’t expect your child to learn something on his own. Yes, kids learn by imitating adults, but this does not mean that they should not be taught. Start your lessons from the first days of life. Speak to your child competently, pronouncing sounds clearly. Communicate, even if it seems to you that he “doesn’t understand anything.” Sing songs of babble words and individual sounds. Read fairy tales. Children must hear live speech. If you don’t work with your child every day, then you won’t hear a speech on time.
Dear parents, if your child has not spoken by the age of 2-2.5 years, urgently contact a specialist. The sooner speech is started, the faster the baby will catch up with his peers. Without speech there can be no normal development of a child's personality.
From “vegetable” to first-grader
In the days of our fathers and mothers and in our childhood, it was rare to meet children with alaliq and autism. There were separate educational institutions for them, they were feared, many parents were embarrassed, and a person with autism received a certificate at the age of 18 with a diagnosis of schizophrenia. And no one understood or understood that the ailments of many austists are compensated by talents in a certain area, and motor alalia has the best prognosis in bringing it to normal.
My boy's name is Stas and he is 7 years old. We went from the phrases of a neurologist in a clinic at 3 months: “Your child will be a vegetable” (may mothers and fellow sufferers understand me, where does your world go at these moments!) to an ordinary first-grader. This path was a continuous method of trial and error until a certain system was built.
I do not maintain pages on social networks dedicated to this issue. I don’t like medals, likes and empty comments - it takes up precious time. But if I had come across someone else’s similar experience a year earlier, the result would have been obviously better, so I decided to share my story.
For reference
Motor alalia is the absence or underdevelopment of speech in children with normal hearing and primarily intact intelligence. The cause of alalia is most often damage to the speech areas of the brain, as well as brain diseases or injuries suffered by the child.
Daily work
And in conclusion, I would like to emphasize once again: alalia is not treated, it is compensated to the limits of the norm so that it will not be noticeable to others. This must be remembered. But this is the daily work of parents. For myself, I came up with two main ways of correction:
- Medication (nootropic drugs) + logogroups and special schools. Traditionally, this method is used in our country and in Russia.
- Correction of lost functions by mechanical correction (neurocorrection or other methods) with complete abandonment of nootropics. The idea is that our body, a smart machine, will be able to compensate itself as much as possible. You just need to methodically do a variety of necessary exercises, day after day. It is very important that the child is in a regular group; he will teach him a lot. Speech therapists cannot be forgotten here either.
Source: rebenok.by
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Conclusions: everything needs to be done on time
It is important to maintain a balance between mental and physical development according to age standards by all means.
He must follow the object with his eyes - we show him rattles, he must crawl in the classical way - we all crawl together, we rearrange the legs ourselves, help, teach (this is the most important skill, one of the stages in the formation of those very interhemispheric connections), must distinguish between colors and shapes - we trace the figures with our fingers , cut out, sculpt, draw, remember them using any available method. Don’t listen to anyone about the normal variant, it will be much more difficult to correct later!
And of course, it is important to spend time on yourself and your development. Like on an airplane: first a mask for yourself, then for your child.
The recovery process is very labor-intensive and requires a lot of effort. A harried and tired mother will give her child objectively less than radiating joy and calm.
Unfortunately, there is no single pill for all ills. You have to figure it out for yourself and try it. The brain cannot be damaged in the same way, everything is individual.
Regular school, integrated class
At the moment, Stas is studying in the 1st grade of integrated education at a regular school. This choice was made consciously; it will be difficult for him to master reading at the right pace, repeat poetry and write, like other children.
At the same time, the son communicates normally with children and adults, everyone understands him. Small differences in the pronunciation of sounds and the clarity of speech, of course, remain, but we hope to eliminate them over several years of close work with a speech therapist.
Additionally, at home we study with the child using textbooks from mathematics schools, we have selected colorful and exciting publications. Logic is his strong point at the moment.
Unfortunately, reading and writing suffer. It takes about 2-3 hours of constant supervision and assistance to learn how to write a letter of the correct size, slant, and with the correct connection. Phonemic hearing is still impaired, he repeats poems poorly, but we are working on this, over time everything is slowly working out: there are copybooks, and we ask him to let him learn the poems in advance.
The brutal truth
Time passed, Stasik was already three years old, but speech did not appear, motor skills and coordination left much to be desired and, as a natural consequence, the development of intelligence began to slow down.
At first this was noticeable only to me and the specialists. Then I heard from an eminent neurologist that “he will never write a job application himself.” Thank you! It was cruel, but I was grateful.
It was scary, I cried all night long. We needed a clear diagnosis, which we never received. I began to study the experience of Russia, Israel, the USA and Germany. What do they do in these cases?
We paid attention to a private speech correction center in St. Petersburg and in just a few hours at the center we performed 5 types of diagnostics, visited several specialists, received a specific diagnosis with a description of the damage and a detailed treatment plan.
The entire event cost us $400, including airfare and food. Within 24 hours, we received a specific and understandable diagnosis based on the results of a comprehensive examination.
Developed within normal limits
The baby was calm, smiled, looked after objects, did not cry for no reason, and slept well according to his own schedule.
The pressure through the fontanel was kept under control. By the year the pressure reached the upper limit of normal. At six months he began to hold his head up normally and roll over, at 8 months he sat unsteadily, sat confidently, crawled like a hare and on his belly, stood by the age of one year, began walking at 1 year and 3 months, and began to say “give me.”
It would seem that life has improved, the boy will straighten out, we were told during routine visits to the neurologist.
I never sneezed during pregnancy
Classics of the genre. A wonderful pregnancy, just like in the book. Never sneezed. I gave birth almost on my 30th birthday, rapid labor, 9 points on the Apgar scale, I immediately screamed and took the breast.
I remember my head wasn’t moving, and the midwife kept shouting: “Push if you want him to study well!” Like looking into the water.
I came for a routine examination by a neurologist at the clinic at 3 months. A young irritated woman told me that the child could not hold his head up, there was hypotonia, and there were signs of increased intracranial pressure. She said: “Get ready, mom, there will be a vegetable.”
And this is my first-born, the best and most beloved! It's hard to believe this. We went for neurosonography to check the child’s blood pressure; it was indeed elevated, but not catastrophically.
We went to two more neurologists just in case. One prescribed medications for blood vessels, the second prescribed a salt heating pad and massages. We worked hard with the child.
“Clever eyes - and that’s good”
At 2 years old, when speech did not develop, large and fine motor skills left much to be desired, I sounded the alarm. I started taking the child to neurologists in Minsk, but the answer was approximately the same: delayed motor development, wait and take vitamins, it’s a boy, this happens, smart eyes are good.
This is an average answer.
So my advice is: don’t wait. You are wasting precious time when you can focus on the child’s recovery.
It took me almost a year to find out what specific injuries my son had and what methods could be used to combat it.
We visited neurologists at the clinic, went to the “luminaries” in paid ones, and were treated at the Republican Scientific and Practical Center of Otorhinolaryngology.
Vascular stimulation medications, neurostimulators, and physiotherapy were prescribed. There was a result, but it was very short-lived - 2-3 weeks, then a rollback.
