Babies that dont "coo" or babble
Babies that dont respond to noise or speech around them
Their first words have not been spoken by 15 months
They have a 50-word vocabulary, or less, by two years old
Others struggle to understand what the child is saying at 3 years or older
Other adults should be able to understand at least 75% of what child says. Struggles to follow simple instructions at 2 years old and beyond
Has speech sound error after five years old
"t", "d" and "n" should be pronounced correctly by age 3Experts recommend an initial evaluation by a pediatrician, who might also recommend an evaluation by a speech-language pathologist. Indications for referral to a speech language pathologist
Indications include:
Doubt as to the nature of the childs speech changes
Exhibit of reactions of avoidance or escape (pauses, interjections, eye blinks and head nods)
Three or more stuttering dysfluencies (e.g. b-but, a-and, thi-this) per 100 syllables uttered.Children may feel a demand to start speaking at a higher level and can have difficulties with speech that exhibits the following patterns:
Fast-paced speech rate with few pauses
The use of several questions in a sentence
Interruption
Lack of learning time
If their teacher/parent does not listen to themWhen those around a child speak too quickly or input several questions within one sentence, the child must engage several cortices as well as comprehension skills in order to verbally respond to the person they are talking to. If the child lacks learning time as they develop, they will be unable to process harder words and hit a stalling point in sentence comprehension.
It is speculated that children will experience developmental linguistic delays at some point due to their muscle and motor plans not working as quickly as their brains. While they are learning speech, they are also developmentally mastering other skills (walking, potty training, motor skills, etc.) The origin of stuttering is not yet fully understood but parents/adults can mitigate the risk of developmental dysfluency by reducing the conversational demands on their child. Modeling slow, smooth speech and acknowledging the demanding and complex nature of learning language can help. Background
Speech is a complicated achievement that involves a series of cognitive, linguistic, sensorimotor and auditory processes that generate an in-depth understanding of language and speech. As children grow up their language and vocabulary grows with them. However, as this happens it is possible that the child might begin to demonstrate forms of disfluencies in their speech as they struggle to get words out when they are engaged in conversation or speaking in general. Preschool children usually go through a period of dysfluency as they attempt to learn linguistic and speech skills. About 10% of these children will experience a speech or language delay that is serious enough to benefit from early referral and assessment by a speech language pathologist. Normal disfluency begins during a childs intensive language learning years and resolves on its own as the child undergoes growth and development. This is considered the normal phase of language development.