Late Talkers: six tips to help parents

Published: 15 Nov 2019 Tagged: childrenCommunicationdevelopmentearly interventionexpressive languagelanguagelanguage developmentlate talkingparentsSLPSpeakablespeakingspeech and language pathologyspeech language pathologistSpeech Pathologyspeech therapytipstoddlers

‘Late talker’ is a denomination for children (usually between 18 and 30 months of age) who display a late development of oral communication, many times with no apparent reason. Language development milestones in a child are accomplished at some age stages commonly shared by most children, but late talkers accomplish the same milestones months or even years after the expected. Though it is scientifically proven that 70% to 80% of late talkers catch up with their peers when starting school, a significant part of them still retains grammar and pronunciation issues.

Though it’s known that early intervention through Speech and Language Pathology therapy is able to reduce and in some cases eliminate the symptoms of late talkers, parents and carers have a crucial responsibility of keeping the child appropriately stimulated during the time the child is not under treatment at the therapy sessions. We have listed six important and easy initiatives for parents to adopt when they have children who are late talkers:

• Replacing the questioning for encouragement. Excessive questions to a late talker can be stressful instead of challenging and might cause more frustration than effort to talk. Instead of asking ‘What is this?’ when the child is pointing for a glass of water, the parent can state ‘This is water. You can say it when you want me to give you.’ In a caring tone. This simple change of tone gives confidence instead of anxiety.
• Recognise every honest effort to speak. Late talkers are not only taking more time to enrich their vocabulary, they are also prone to pronunciation or grammar mistakes. While the effort to say anything might be overwhelming for the child, a parent shouldn’t correct what was said without first celebrating the effort. The late talker’s inner will to try must be recognised, even if there are still errors.
• Visual and kinaesthetic cues to emphasise sounds. Sometimes, late talkers might misplace or change the pronunciation of some phonemes because they are still learning those words. The use of cues is extremely helpful, because they increase the child’s memorisation when saying some of those words. Check out this interesting short video about visual cues for sounds as an example of possibilities:
• Sign language. While not needed to explore all the complexity of a sign language, there are very simple signs for daily activities or familiar items. The use of signs can reduce frustration while the child is still trying to say in an understandable way. Check out this short video with helpful signs to be used with toddlers:
• Games that stimulate word repetition. There are many games to play with a toddler and it’s very easy to explore some words according to the game. For example, singing and dancing songs about body parts to point out.
• Read aloud as much as you can. According to The Hanen Centre, a child starts school with an average vocabulary of 5,000 words. Therefore, it’s possible to calculate that between 1 and 5 years old, a child learns about 3.5 words a day! Late talkers might be suffering from an underperforming stimulation at home, so it’s important to orally speak and contextualise words so the child can assimilate a broad number of words in early years. Important note: television and online videos don’t count in this activity to provide new words to children, according to developmental studies.

If you notice your child might be presenting signs of late talking, the first thing to do is to visit a paediatrician in order to have an initial statement from this professional. Sometimes it’s only a small delay which will be solved in months, but if it’s a significant delay, the paediatrician might refer for the child to be tested according to speech and language developmental milestones and other developmental and communication tests. If necessary, a speech and language pathology therapy program can be developed. The earlier the intervention, the more effective is the treatment. In case you need to understand more details about tests and therapy programs, don’t hesitate on contacting the Speakable team!