Is Your Child's Speech Developing Normally?
May is Better Hearing and Speech Month. May is a perfect time for parents to pay particular attention to their child's speech and language development. During the first year, your child will begin to make eye contact and engagement, leaving you with the warm feeling of connection. Soon the eye engagement turns into sound imitations, cooing, and babbling to represent the child's needs or wants.
By the first year, your child will begin to produce their first words most often the most endeared words of 'mama' or 'dada'. The sounds your child will begin to produce are /m, p, t, d/ within their babbling and the sound inflections begin to represent their personality and desires. Soon after their first birthday, their milestones of walking, climbing, and eating solids begin to shape them into the Toddler we all come to enjoy. By this time, the vocabulary list will be growing and a rule of thumb is 18 words by 18 months.
The vocabulary list grows to consist of nouns and verbs representing their wants and needs. By two-three years of age, your child will now be combining multiple words together (two to three word phrases) and slowly begin to ask “What's that?” questions. Now your child is turning into a little person that you can begin having a small conversation with along with the endless battles for independency that we call the “Terrible Two's.”
By the time your child is five years of age, their vocabulary is very diverse, along with their ability to socially engage and describe events within their day. Their sentences are much longer and the conversation turn-taking abilities are much more developed.
As May is Better Hearing and Speech Month, consider these above markers and discuss with your pediatrician if your child does not exhibit or demonstrate any of the above developmental speech and language milestones. Each child develops at his or her own pace and may not necessarily meet the mile markers; your child may be progressing forward, just at a different pace.
You can seek further information on Speech and Language Development by visiting the American Speech Hearing Association (ASHA) website www.asha.org.
If you have additional concerns, you can find a Certified and Licensed Speech Language Pathologist in your area on the ASHA website, or contact your local Early Intervention services for further guidance.
Take the time now during the month of May to observe and ask questions if you are concerned; it's never too late to give our children the gift of language.
