Speech Therapy For Speech And Language Developmental Delays

Do you suspect your child may have a speech and language developmental delay?

Or perhaps they’ve been recently diagnosed with one and you’re not sure how best to support them and what treatments are available.

Speech refers to the ability to verbally express language, articulating words and sounds.

Language refers to the ability to give and receive information.

In other words, understanding what is being communicated and making yourself understood when communicating.

Speech delays can cause your child to have difficulty forming specific words and phrases, making them hard to understand.

Language delays can cause your child to have difficulty using the right words and creating coherent structured language.

However, they may be able to say individual words without issue.

Whatever the case may be, we can help.

At District Speech and Language Therapy, we offer pediatric speech therapy to help identify and address any speech and language developmental delays your child may have.

We’ll work with your child to help improve their speech and communication abilities.

In this article, we’ll take a look at developmental delays, and how speech and language therapy can help.

What Is A Speech And Language Developmental Delay?

We’ve written about speech related developmental milestones before.

If you have a new child and you’re not familiar with these milestones, it’s a good idea to take a look.

Developmental milestones for speech and language indicate important checkpoints in your child’s development.

Assessing your child’s abilities in reference to these milestones can help identify if they’re having developmental issues or delays.

So what speech and language milestones should your child be reaching that are typical for certain age ranges?

Let’s briefly go over some of them.

By the time they are three months old, they ought to:

• Recognize your voice
• Vocally express emotions through sounds
• React to noise
• Cry to express needs

By six months, they ought to:

• Begin making babbling sounds
• Express emotions through sounds
• Track sounds with their eyes
• Understand simple commands like “no”
• Begin trying to imitate words
• Say their first word

By twelve months, they ought to:

• Try to imitate speech
• Say a few basic words
• Answer questions nonverbally
• Recognize common words
• Use nonverbal communication

By eighteen months, they ought to:

• Know the names of common items in your house
• Recognize family member names, objects, and body parts
• Use simple two word phrases
• Begin building a vocabulary of different words
• Identify objects being read to them

By two years old, they ought to:

• Follow simple commands
• Use simple phrases
• Understand simple actions
• Begin to understand different verb tenses
• Better articulate words and letters

Remember that every child is different and develops and learns at their own pace.

It’s reasonable for some children to have some delays in their speech and language development.

However, significant delays, alongside atypical behavior, could be indicative of other developmental issues.

In that case it’s a good idea to consider bringing your child into District Speech and Language Therapy for an assessment.

What Causes Speech And Language Developmental Delays?

There are many different conditions that can cause speech and language delays.

It may be related to physical differences, like tongue tie or a cleft lip or palate.

Speech and language delays are also often associated with oral motor differences.

These can be related to weakness in speech muscles, or a difference in the part of the brain responsible for coordinating them.

There are several developmental disorders that are often associated with motor problems, communication issues, and speech and language developmental delays.

We’ve written articles about them on our blog that you can check out, but let’s briefly go over them here.

1. Autism

Autism is a neurodevelopmental difference.

That means it’s caused by a child’s brain developing differently than most.

Autistic children have several different common behavior traits.

In particular, autistic children tend to have different ways of learning, paying attention, and socializing.

As a result, autistic children can experience speech and language delays and other communication issues.

RELATED ARTICLE: Frequently Asked Questions About Autism

2. Down Syndrome

Down syndrome is a genetic condition that’s characterized by physical and intellectual delays.

It can cause your child to have difficulty being understood because they have trouble coordinating all of the systems involved in creating speech and proper articulation.

RELATED ARTICLE: Frequently Asked Questions About Down syndrome

3. Cerebral Palsy

Cerebral palsy is a group of disorders that affect the brain and cause impaired muscle movement and coordination.

This can make it difficult for your child to move and coordinate their muscles in order to create speech sounds.

4. Muscular Dystrophy

Muscular dystrophy is a group of genetic conditions that can impact muscle function.

This can affect your child’s ability to acquire language and produce speech.

5. Traumatic Brain Injury

A traumatic brain injury can impact your brain’s ability to coordinate and control the muscles needed for speech.

It can cause your child to speak unintelligibly in slow and slurred words or have difficulty with specific sounds and syllables.

6. Hearing Impairment

Hearing impairments can also affect speech.

A great deal of learning language involves your child hearing what’s happening around them and learning to imitate it.

Children with hearing loss will have a more difficult time doing so.

This depends on the level of hearing loss.

Children with mild hearing loss may lag a little behind their peers.

On the other hand, children with complete hearing loss (deafness) won’t be able to hear the speech around them at all.

RELATED ARTICLE: How Can Hearing Loss Affect Your Child’s Development?

7. Idiopathic Developmental Delay

While there are numerous conditions and factors that can contribute to speech and language delays, more often than not, the cause isn’t known.

This is known as an “idiopathic” delay.

How Do Speech Therapists Diagnose Developmental Delays?

If you suspect that your child is having speech and language difficulties and isn’t reaching their expected developmental milestones, it could be an indication of a developmental delay.

If that’s the case, it’s important to speak with a speech therapist as soon as possible.

They’ll be able to assess your child’s speech and language skills.

Using standardized tests and looking for speech and language developmental milestones, they’ll be able to determine if your child requires speech therapy.

Some of the things that your speech therapist will check include:

• Your child’s receptive language (what they understand)
• Your child’s expressive language (what they can say)
• Articulation and sound production
• Oral motor skills

Once your child receives their diagnosis, speech therapy can help address any speech and language issues and delays that they may be facing.

How Can Speech Therapy Help With Developmental Delays?

A speech therapist will first conduct an evaluation in order to understand your child’s specific difficulties and needs.

Additionally, they’ll look for underlying causes that may be contributing to your child’s developmental delays.

This way they can create individualized speech therapy plans for your child based on their unique requirements and abilities.

A speech therapist will work with your child to help them improve their speech and language skills so that they can communicate better and reach target milestones.

Early intervention speech therapy is crucial to help them establish good habits and get quicker more effective results.

But it’s also important to continue speech therapy at home.

You can help encourage your child to improve their speech and language skills in a number of ways.

Speech begins with imitation, so it’s a good idea to focus on communicating with your child as much as possible so that they can acquire and develop new speech and language skills.

You can also encourage them to communicate by asking them to talk about their day or their favorite activities.

Another great method is to read to your child.

You can also incorporate picture books to get them more engaged and create relationships between words and images.

You can include speech and language interventions into everyday activities to encourage your child to use those skills.

Above all else, it’s important to be patient, describe the correct way of using certain sounds or words, and praise your child when they do well.

Book Your Appointment With Our Speech Therapy Clinic Today

Does your child have a speech and language developmental delay, or do you suspect that they may have one?

In either case, we can help.

Our speech therapists will work with your child to help identify and address their speech and language difficulties and provide pediatric speech therapy to get them back on track.

Book your appointment with District Speech and Language Therapy today, to get started.