|
HOME |
SITE MAP |
START PAGE |
ABOUT |
DISCLAIMER |
|
|
|
|
|
|
PRIVACY |
CONTENTS |
LINKS |
EMAIL |
COPYRIGHT |
| |
|
|
|
|
|
|
Speech and Language Development
IN INFANTS AND YOUNG
CHILDREN
Copyright ©
1998 Caroline Bowen
|
| |
| |
Citing
this article
This page contains an article about speech
and language development. Cite it as:
Bowen, C. (1998). Speech
and language development in infants and young children. Retrieved on
(date)
from http://www.speech-language-therapy.com/devel1.htm |
| |
Language
Acquisition
Language acquisition
is partly innate and partly learned, as children interact with other people and the
environment. |
|
How
is language learned?
Whether
they speak early or late, are learning one language or more, are
learning to talk along typical lines or are experiencing difficulties,
the language acquisition of all children occurs gradually
through interaction with people and the environment. |
| |
|
|
Language
Language has been
called the symbolisation
of thought.
It is a learned code, or system
of rules that enables us to
communicate ideas
and express wants and
needs.
Reading, writing,
gesturing and speaking
are all forms of language.
Language
falls into two
main divisions:
receptive language:
understanding what
is
said, written or signed;
and, expressive language: speaking,
writing or signing.
|
|
Your role in language learning
Maybe
you are a couple raising your baby, or you might be a sole parent or
caregiver. Whatever your family structure, you are the most
'significant other' your baby interacts with communicatively.
The way you engage with him or her will determine the path that language
development takes in the vital first five years.
Be
natural
Enjoy
this exciting period in your child's development. Talk in a natural way
about what he or she is doing, seeing and hearing. Listen to
the sounds, and later the words he or she says, and respond, so
that your child knows you are listening. Read stories together from an
early age, and make communicating fun.
Progress should be steady
Children learn at different rates. Some are fast
language learners and some are slow, so it is best not to compare one
child's language development with another's. The important thing to
watch is that language development proceeds steadily, not whether
it is fast or slow. |
| |
|
Pragmatics
skills
Pragmatic skills begin to develop in the early weeks of life, with tiny
babies "turn taking", and initiating communicative interchanges, and
"talking" (non-verbally,
of course) to their caregivers. |
|
Pragmatics
Pragmatic skills include:
1.knowing that you have
to answer when a question has been asked;
2. being able to participate in a conversation by taking
it in turns with
the other
speaker;
3. the ability to notice and respond to the non-verbal aspects of
language;
4. awareness that you
have to introduce a topic
of conversation in order
for the listener to fully
understand;
5. knowing which words
or what sort of sentence-type
to use when
initiating
a conversation or
responding to something
another person has said;
6. the ability to maintain a topic;
7. the ability to maintain
appropriate eye contact,
with not too much staring,
and not too much looking away during a conversation;
and,
8. the ability to distinguish how to talk and behave towards different
communicative partners.
|
|
Language "Milestones"
"Ages and
Stages" charts for
speech and language
development and speech
intelligibility criteria can be worrying if they
are interpreted too rigidly. Remember that children vary quite
considerably with regard to the rate at which they reach the various
speech and language "milestones". So there is no need to put out an SOS for a
speech pathologist if your child does not do the things itemised at
precisely the ages stated!
When
you see language ages and stages and read an age like '12
months' say to yourself, 'twelve months or so'.
The
first three years
By
12 months (or so!) most children have one or two words that they say
with meaning and can comply with simple requests (e.g., 'Can I have
your cup?') or commands (e.g., "Don't touch!") and
understand little questions (e.g., 'Where's your
tummy?').
By 2 to 3 years of age your
child should be
able to follow two-part instructions ('Get your teddy and put it on
the chair') and string two or three words together to talk about
and ask for things.
More detailed information
You might be interested to
read the section here about
Brown's
Stages. It provides an account of the development of the first
'sentences' children say, and the grammatical rules (morphemes)
they apply. There is also information on this
site about the way
SLPs
collect and analyse small children's language samples.If
progress seems too slow
If 'first words' have not emerged by 18
months make a concerted effort to spend half an hour a day just playing
and interacting one-to-one with your baby. This can be difficult
to organise in larger families, but it often does the trick! How to set
these times up and maximise their usefulness can be discussed with an SLP,
who may suggest and demonstrate various activities. When to seek help
Even though they are concerned that their child's
speech and language development may be unusual or slower than normal,
people may hesitate to seek the professional advice of a speech-language
pathologist. Sometimes this is because they are advised against it by
reassuring friends, family and others. But sometimes it is because they
think the child is too young to 'be assessed'.
The fact is, babies or toddlers are never too young
for a communication skills assessment. Speech-Language Pathologists (SLPs) see children from
infancy.
|
| |
|
A
rough guide
Expect
first words between 12 and 18 months.
There will probably be a "spurt" of language
development before 2 years.
Anticipate hearing 4 to 5 word sentences by 4 years.
Grammar should be correct most of the time
by 4 years.
"Other people"
will understand
almost everything
your child says
by the time
he or she is 4!.
Isn't that amazing?
|
|
The very very young clients SLPs include on
their caseloads may have cleft palate, hearing impairment, developmental
disability (for example, Down Syndrome) or they may have been identified
early as being "at risk", unduly silent, withdrawn or unresponsive to the
communicative attempts of others. Or they may simply be late
talkers.
The right time to seek help is when
you,
as a parent, are concerned.
Speech development
Children's speech does not sound like adult speech
because they make typical child-like 'sound replacements'. These sound replacements are called phonological processes by some
researchers.
Phonological processes
Some
of the phonological processes, and the ages by which they normally
disappear from a child's speech are outlined in quite a lot of detail
here. The
following examples of phonological processes provide a general rule of thumb.
The
phonological process called context
sensitive voicing e.g.,
cup
= gup has usually disappeared from a child's speech sound system by three
years of age (3;0).
Similarly, the phonological process called word
final devoicing e.g., bed = bet has normally gone by
3;0.
A few months later by 3;3
(that's three years 3 months) final consonant deletion,
e.g., boat = bow generally vanishes. The phonological process of velar
fronting e.g., car = tar persists
until about 3;6 in many children. Consonant
harmony e.g., kittycat = tittytat, continues until close to 3;9,
by which age it has normally vanished.
Weak
syllable deletion e.g., elephant = effant is common up to
the age of 4;0, as is
cluster reduction e.g., spoon = boon.
Gliding
of liquids e.g., leg = weg normally disappears by
5;0.
Stopping of 'f' e.g., fish = tish, and
Stopping
of 's' e.g., say = tay go by 3;0. Stopping
of 'z' e.g., peas = pead often persists until 3.6. Stopping
of 'sh' (shop = dop), Stopping of 'j'
(Jack = dack) and Stopping of 'ch'
(chin =
tin) are eliminated by 4;6. Stopping
of 'th' (this = dis, that = dat) can go on until 5;0. |
Late
talkers
A child is considered to
be
a "late talker" if he or she has a spoken vocabulary of fewer than 50 words at 24 months.
This does not mean that the 50 words will be pronounced
perfectly
- two year olds are
supposed to talk baby talk!
It is advisable for late
talkers to be assessed
by a Speech LanguagePathologist. |
|
| |
Child-like
speech
This
may sound strange, but expect your child's speech to be child-like. |
|
| |
|
This
is normal...
Children, that is, ALL
children, sometimes
misunderstand what
is said to them, utter
oddly worded sentences, and put speech sounds in
the wrong spots (or omit
them) when they are
learning to talk.
...and
this
is not
Stuttering is not a normal part of learning to talk
(though a LITTLE "normal non-fluency" is); children's voices
should not be hoarse unless they have a cold; and if children are
disinterested in communicating with
other people, have poor
eye-contact and are aloof with people outside the family,
or usually respond to what
you say by echoing all or part of it back to you word-for-word, their communication
skills should be assessed. |
|
SLPs
SLPs are the only
professionals uniquely qualified to assess, diagnose and treat
communication disorders. SLPs are called by different names in different
parts of the world. For example:
Australia Speech Pathologist
Canada
Speech-Language Pathologist
France Orthophoniste
French Canada Orthophoniste
New Zealand Speech-Language Therapist
South Africa
Speech Language Therapist
United Kingdom Speech and Language Therapist
United States
Speech-Language Pathologist
Not all SLPs see
children, and not all SLPs who do see children assess and manage every childhood
communication disorder. Some SLPs specialise in particular areas, and some
are generalists.
Qualifications
If you are in
Australia, consult a certified practising member (CPSP) of
Speech
Pathology Australia. United States and
Cananda residents should look at the
ASHA
site where there is an
Online
Directory of SLPs and Audiologists. The
Canadian
site has a 'find a practioner' page. In the United Kingdom
ASLTIP has a searchable database of Speech and Language Therapists in private
(independent) practice.
If you are somewhere else in the world, and you are uncertain
about a practitioner's qualifications, check with the professional
association for Speech-Language Pathologists in your country,
or the country where the practitioner says they gained their
qualifications. Most of these sites contain a description of the criteria for membership
of their associations. The sites listed
here
are among the bona fide
professional associations.
|
|
Resources |
|
| |
Resources for Speech |
 |
Developmental Phonological Disorders
This book (Bowen, 1998) is intended for
families and teachers to use as an
adjunct to professional speech intervention by a
Speech-Language Pathologist.
ISBN:
0 86431 256 3 592BK
ORDER FORM -
PURCHASE ONLINE |
|
Developmental Phonological
Disorders |
|
| |
Typical speech development
What to expect!
Encouraging typical speech
What parents can do to foster speech
development
Consumer Slide Shows
Instructional slideshows for families about helping children with
their speech progress.
The Quick Screener
Teachers may be interested in the teachers' version of the Quick
Screener. It comes with three instructional slide shows. |
| |
|
| |
|
| |
Book for
families about typical language development |
 |
Listen
to Your Child
This is a favourite book for families by Linguistics Professor (and parent!) David Crystal.
ISBN
0-7615-2647-1
|
|
Listen
to Your Child |
|
| |
Book for
families about typical language development |
Language development
from birth to 5 years. |
Beyond
Baby Talk
This book by Kenn Apel and
Julie Masterson (two CCC-SLPs
who are also parents themselves, as well as being eminent academics) is
highly recommended as a well written, entertaining
and authoritative information source for parents
and professionals. |
|
Beyond Baby Talk |
|
| |
DVD for
families about typical language development |
 |
Speech, Language, and Hearing Milestones DVD
Covering children
from birth to age five, this well produced DVD is full of examples
of normal speech, language, and hearing development and tips on when
to seek treatment from speech-language pathologists and
audiologists.
Book/CD for
families about typical language development
Talking on the Go
Talking On the Go is loaded with everyday activities
to enhance speech and language development in four major areas:
building vocabulary; listening and speech production; reading and
writing readiness; and, participation in conversations. The
accompanying CD allows pages from the book to be printed out. |
|
Speech, Language, and Hearing Milestones DVD |
|
|
|
|
 |
|
Talking on the Go |
| |
|
|
Professional help
See a Speech-Language
Pathologist (SLP) without delay if you are concerned about your
child's:
babbling
see
vocaldevelopment.com
receptive language
understanding of what is said
expressive language
ability to talk in words, phrases and
sentences
speech sounds
the clarity of their speech
pragmatics
the ability and desire to
communicate and 'turn-take' in an appropriate [for their age and
culture] friendly, sociable, playful and interested way
fluency
persistent
stuttering is not normal
voice quality
persistent hoarseness is not
normal
|
| |
|
Language
experts
If you are concerned about your child's language progress, seek an
assessment from a qualified
Speech-Language Pathology professional. |
|
You
are the expert
Rely
on your own judgment. If you think your child has a problem in the area
of communication skills don't hesitate to seek proper professional help.
Don't be diverted by well-meaning people who
are overly reassuring. Remember, you are the best expert on your own
child's development and progress. Early identification of communication
difficulties in children can prevent other problems developing, such as
difficult behaviour, learning difficulties (especially with reading and spelling) and
problems relating to and getting along
with other people. |
| |
|
Trust
YOUR judgment
You might be advised by a kindly friend, relative or "non-SLP"
professional that your child is too young
for an assessment or to
"Leave it for six months"
(before seeking an
assessment). This
may
not be appropriate advice. Most parents know instinctively if all is
not well with their own child's development.
Follow your instincts! |
|
About the author
Dr
Caroline Bowen is a Certified Practising Member of Speech Pathology Australia and
an International Affiliate Member of the American Speech-Language-Hearing
Association.
More Links
Twins: development & language
Speech sound disorders
Discussion |
| |
|
|
Page updated
04 Feb 2010
|
| |
|
|
|
|
|
HOME |
SITE MAP |
START PAGE |
ABOUT |
DISCLAIMER |
|
|
|
|
|
|
PRIVACY |
CONTENTS |
LINKS |
EMAIL |
COPYRIGHT |
| |
|
|
|
|
http://www.speech-language-therapy.com/devel1.htm
COPYRIGHT
©
Caroline Bowen ALL RIGHTS RESERVED
|
|
|