Help your child speak more

Perhaps you know someone who is worried about her child’s language. Or perhaps you have been wondering if there’s anything you can do to help your child speak more. If you are unsure about your child’s language development, these red flags may help put things in perspective (source: www.hanen.org):

- By 12 months your child doesn’t babble; doesn’t use gestures like waving “bye bye” or shaking head for “no”; doesn’t respond to her name; doesn’t communicate in some way when she needs help.

- By 15 months your child doesn’t understand and respond to words like “no” and “up”; says no words; doesn’t point to objects or pictures when asked: “Where’s the ...?”; doesn’t point to things of interest as if to say: “Look at that!” and then look right at you.

- By 18 months your child doesn’t understand simple commands like “Don’t touch”; isn’t using at least 20 single words like “Mummy” or “up”; doesn’t respond with a word or gesture to a question such as “Where’s your shoe?”; can’t point to two or three major body parts such as head, nose, eyes, feet.

- By 24 months your child says fewer than 100 words; isn’t consistently joining two words together like “Daddy go” or “no shoes”; doesn’t imitate actions or words; doesn’t pretend with toys, such as feeding a doll.

- By 30 months your child says fewer than 300 words; isn’t using action words like “run”, “eat”; isn’t using some adult grammar, like “two babies” and “doggie sleeping”.

- By three years your child doesn’t ask questions; isn’t using sentences (e.g. “I don’t want that” or “My truck is broken”).

- By five years your child isn’t able to tell a simple story.

If you are concerned about your child’s language development, one of the things you can do is to talk to a speech language pathologist ( SLP).

Sometimes, parents are advised to adopt a “wait-and-see” approach as their child will most probably grow out of a language problem.

How ever, data from the United States has pointed to about 5-8% of preschool children experiencing language delays which continue well into adulthood.

So it becomes important for this child to receive help in learning language and to communicate well as early as possible.

In the past, early intervention for language was confined to clinical sessions or speech therapy, where an SLP would help the child develop speech and language, with or without the parents involved in the sessions. However, current research into how children acquire language suggests that children learn best from their parents or caregivers, in a naturalistic and familiar environment.

As a result, most SLPs now will provide training to parents to become effective language facilitators. This means that apart from the regular speech therapy sessions with the SLP, the child will have an enriched language learning enviro nment at home.

An SLP will educate parents on how to make use of everyday situations, such as mealtimes or a trip to the supermarket, to facilitate language development.

The most important thing to remember is that communication can and should be fun. The more fun your child has, the more she will want to communicate.

* Farah A. Mohd Alkaf, a Hanen-certified speech language pathologist, will be conducting a workshop for SLPs, parents and teachers on Helping The Language-Delayed Child Communicate – The Hanen Way in Petaling Jaya, Selangor, on Nov 12. For details, call Coreen of JPL Training Track at [phone] or email [e-mail].