Early Detection of Speech Delays and Disorders
How to Identify Communication Problems in Preschoolers
Aug 30, 2009
Early in a child’s life, verbal and language development process begins. It is within the first 12 months of life that a normally developing infant will respond to voices around him and by the age of 2 years, a toddler will begin to verbally express himself and follow simple commands. When a preschooler has a speech delay or a communication disorder, he may not respond to others with understanding. He may also avoid speaking altogether.
Early Detection of Communication Disorders
It is vitally important that a speech or language disorder be identified as early as possible by the child’s parents, caregiver, daycare worker, or teacher so that speech therapy can be provided. Any adults who are taking care of infants and toddlers should be on the lookout for significant delays in the following communication skills:
Communication milestones within the first year:
- Responds to speech by looking at person speaking
- Understands the different tones indicating anger and happiness
- Physically turns toward sounds and voices
- Begins to understand simple words such as “hi”, “bye”, “mama”, “up”, “down”, etc.
- Responds to the “no” command
- Babbles
- Imitates sounds and syllables with voice
- Communicates wants with different tones of crying and “baby talk”
Communication milestones by the second year:
- Understands when a phrase is a question
- Shows understanding of simple two- or three-word commands such as “Get the toy”
- Speaks first word or words
- Knows first name
- Uses words such as “mine”
- Vocabulary grows to at least 50 words
- Points and uses single words to ask for things
Communication milestones by the third year:
- Can identify pictures of common objects
- Enjoys listening to stories
- Begins joining words into sentences
- Can understand and ask questions using “what”, “when”, and “where”
- Uses the word “can’t”
- Knows last name
Identifying Preschool Speech Disorders
There are many signs and symptoms of communication disorders in the classroom that preschool teachers will want to look for. Here are a few:
- Refuses to talk
- Cannot identify pictures of objects
- Cannot follow simple directions and/or seems confused when asked to do something
- Omits beginning or ending sounds in words
- Still substitutes words (“thing”) for more appropriate words (“chalk”) at the age of four
- Speech is not understandable by the age of four
- Struggles to say words and is aware of difficulty in speech
- Embarrassed by his or her speech
- Hesitation in speech or abnormal amount of stuttering
- Voice is either too soft or too loud
- Speech is nasally or accompanied by abnormal amount of saliva
Autism, Hearing Loss, and Speech Delays
Often speech delays in small children can signal an even greater issue such as hearing loss or autism. Autism is characterized as a disorder affecting a child’s ability to socialize, communicate, and adapt to surroundings. Many children with autism experience speech delays, and in fact may not speak at all. Conversation skills of autistic children such as initiating/maintaining meaningful discussions, appropriate tone of voice, and correct interpretation of words can be lacking.
Early detection of speech delays and disorders should be a priority for all parents, teachers, and caregivers of small children. The more quickly a communication disorder can be identified, the better the chances are that the small child or preschooler will be able to improve with speech therapy. Knowing the milestones of speech and language development will be the key to helping children with speech disorders.
Source:
Brownstone, David & Franck Irene, Parenting A to Z. NY: HarperCollins Publishers, 1996.
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