Understanding Speech

Learning to talk is not always a simple process, so here are some great tips from our friendly speech therapist, Catherine Jackson.

language development childs vocabulary speech sounds language problems

I remember thinking that my children's language development would be amazing. I'm a speech and language therapist so naturally, I would be having linguistically complex conversations with them at the age of two. Other mothers would be dazzled by their vocabulary. At their two year check, the health visitor would pass their communication skills with gold stars all around. That was before I had children. Fast forward a few years. Child number one wasn't too bad, though not as advanced as she should have been, given the intensive knowledge I was imparting in her direction. As for child number two? To quote the health visitor at his two year check “If you weren't a speech therapist, I would recommend you go and see a speech therapist.” No gold stars. No two word combinations to make the HV happy. Not even any single words. I think he might have grunted when I asked him what a pig said. That was it. However, I knew he'd be fine. He had all the building blocks for language; he just needed a little more time.

But what if you're not a speech and language therapist? What if you don't know what your child should and shouldn't be doing at their age? Where do you go for help and what can you do?

Learning to talk involves the development and interaction of many different skills. Although all the elements of communication are inextricably linked, they can be broken up into (not exclusively) the following:

Speech Sounds
Understanding of language
Spoken Language

As I can testify, all children develop their first words at different times. Some may be as young as 10 months, some may be later. But you might find the following guidelines useful:

Between 8 - 12 months your child might start to:

imitate adult's behaviour; eg, waving
understand because of clues from situation
enjoy repetitive games like peek-a-boo
turn take with sounds
initiate interaction
babble, experimenting with sounds

By 18 months your child might be:

Using up to 50 words
jargoning; e.g, unintelligible made up words or sentences
Using word strings; eg, mum ... car ... keys
pseudo 2 word utterances; eg, allgone
dances or bounces to music
follows simple one step commands; e.g, pick up the cup (situation, gesture and intonation clues are important for understanding)
looking at person talking
identifying objects in a book
looking for objects that are out of sight

test childs hearing baby signing making sounds with child and baby encouraging talking repeat words

And if they're not?

Consider their hearing. Although many children have a hearing test at birth, this would not pick up middle ear difficulties like “glue ear.” This isn't only linked to frequent ear infections. If your child has permanent green train tracks on his top lip during the winter months, likelihood is his hearing is impaired, so chat to your GP.

Try baby signing. If your child is waving bye bye, then they will be able to imitate simple signs. This doesn't stop the words from coming, but acts to bridge the gap from no words to talking. It eases frustration and helps you and your child to share an experience.

Keep it short and simple if a child is only speaking in single words, your utterances should be at the same level or slightly longer, two words. Eg 'car' or 'red car.' Comment on what they are doing/interested in rather than asking questions all the time.

Make silly sounds Blow raspberries, make kissing noises, whheeeee as you go down a slide, brmmm as you play cars. Before they can copy words, children can copy noises and sounds, so give them plenty opportunities.

Repeat, repeat, repeat Children need to hear the same words many times before they will remember it or use it themselves.

Turn off the telly and your phone Give your child your full attention whenever you can. You're less likely to pick up on their attempts to talk if you're checking your texts and emails.

Speak to your health visitor. They'll be able to give you some advice and refer on to a speech and language therapist if necessary.

Catherine Jackson

Speech and language therapist

MRCSLT

health & wellbeing

Understanding Speech