As parents, we’re always “watching out” for our young childrens’ developmental milestones – their first smile, first steps, first words. Watching your little one conquer new skills is so exciting. But what if their language skills don't develop as quickly as you expected?
We chatted to leading Speech and language therapist, Pamela Raftery from ARC Speech and Language Clinic for her insight into knowing when you’re just being an over-eager parent or when you need a Speech and Language assessment with a qualified therapist (SLT).
Here are her 8 things to look out for:
1. Response to own name and names of familiar objects and people
Does your child look at you when you call her by name? And look around if she hears you mention her favourite toys or people? By 6 - 12 months old, there’s no guarantee that she’ll do what you’re asking her to, but she should at least be turning her head to you when she hears you say her name.
2. Intentional vocalisations
By about six months, your child should begin to appreciate the effect of her vocalisations on others, and start to vocalise intentionally to get your attention, not just to experiment with her voice. These vocalisations may be words, but at this stage are more likely to be cries, squeals or babble.
3. Gestures
Does your child hold things up to show you? Does she give you things? Does she point to objects or events in order to draw your attention to them? The ability to use gestures is an important precursor for language development, and these earliest uses of gesture should be evident by about 10 months old.
4. Imitation
A crucial step in the development of good communication skills, by 12 months old your child should be able to engage in a “copy-cat” game with you. This might be copying an action with an object (e.g. banging a spoon on the table), copying a gesture or body movement (e.g. you sticking out your tongue) or copying your sounds or words.
5. Eye-contact and enjoyment of social interactions
From early infancy, your baby should be making and maintaining eye contact with you and, by 6 months, be showing clear signs that she enjoys social interactions with you by smiling and laughing in games such as ‘peek-a-boo’.
6. Play skills
Critical for the development of language skills, by around 21 months your child should be starting to move on from functional play (e.g. pushing a car down a ramp) to pretend play such as pretending to feed teddy or re-enacting things that happen in her daily routines. By 2.5years, she should be engaging in some imaginative play, and by 3 she should be very interested in playing with other children.
7. Understanding words
By 12 months, your child should understand several social and action words like “bye-bye” and “up” (to mean “lift me up”) as well as her own name and the names of familiar objects and people. By 18 months she should understand lots of words and be able to follow simple instructions like “Get your hat”. By 21 months she should be able to point to a picture or sign when asked, by 2-3 years be understanding longer instructions involving in/on/under etc., and be listening attentively to and understanding easy stories., and by 3-4 years she should be understanding long sentences, a range of word types (nouns, verbs, adjectives, adverbs etc) and questions like what, who, when or why? By age 5 she should be able to follow a complex instruction with at least 5 “parts” to it, e.g. “
sit down at your desk and
colour all the
animals”.
8. Using words
We expect to hear long strings of babble by 6 months, developing into first words by the 12-18 month mark, around 20 single words by 18 month and at least 100 single words and the start of some spontaneous 2 word combinations (e.g. “daddy play”) by age 2. By 2.5 years your child should have at least 300 words. By 3-4 years she should be using sentences with 4-6 words, be using some early emotional language (e.g. “I’m tired/hungry”) and be asking questions like what, where or why, and by 5 years she should be using sentences that sound almost adult-like.
Approximately 40-50% of children who are late to talk (who have typical skills in other areas) do not catch up on their own. Even when late talkers appear to catch up with their peers, they are still at greater risk for difficulties with reading.
If you are concerned about your toddler’s language development, don’t listen to people who tell you to “wait and see” Get in touch with Pamela and her team at ARC Speech and Language Clinic or info@arcspeech.ie.
