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Experts explained the reasons for speech delay in children
Speech therapists talk about the reasons for the delay in the development of speech in babies.
When my son was 11 months old, I began to wait for the first words from him. Of course, referring to the tables of developmental norms, where it was said that by the year the baby will babble “mom” and “dad”, ask for “give BBC” and other baby sweets.
In a year, the son did not speak. One and a half too. However, he was silent even at two. Well, how can I say, he was silent. It was absolutely impossible to close his mouth. But it was also impossible to isolate at least one intelligible word from the stream of sounds.
Grandmothers unanimously recited the mantra “well, he’s a boy, they’re late.” I decided: I will wait up to three years with the specialists. In the meantime, I was doing two things, as it seemed to me, were optimal at that time. I talked to him nonstop and read to him constantly.
The son spoke at 2 years and 3 months. In just a couple of weeks, having gone through all the stages: from syllables to detailed sentences with adverbial turns. I’m not exaggerating now. Moreover, it turned out that he remembered almost everything that was read to him, and gave out poems and fairy tales with quotations by heart.
You could exhale. But, as in that joke, the spoons were found, but the sediment remained. And not only for me, but for most modern mothers. The question: why children’s speech at the beginning of the XXI century develops later, slower, worse, we decided to address the expert – the leading speech therapist of the remote speech center “Oppy-Online” Tatyana Komarova.
– In our time, children’s speech is formed differently than in the old days. Firstly, even our mothers were healthier and more resilient than us, and the ecology was even better recently. All this cannot but affect childbirth – they do not very often proceed absolutely smoothly: fast, long, with the use of stimulation. As a result, the child is born with neurological symptoms. And this undoubtedly slows down, including the development of his speech.
– Even not so much the gadgets themselves, but the fact that a child with a phone or tablet is, in fact, left to himself. And this is the most invisible, but also one of the most frequent factors – minimal and unproductive communication with the child. But speech does not develop without human communication and interaction. I think many have heard of Mowgli children. If there is no contact with a person, then speech, in fact, is not needed. Everything can be done with your hands, shown with gestures and facial expressions. This is what animals do.
– In fact, we are now more often surprised if a child is developing normally, without delays and deviations. Sadly, these children are few. And of the problems, one can single out tempo delays in speech – when a child begins to speak not at a year and a half, but closer to three, weak fine motor skills in older children – they work with their fingers very awkwardly. Well, only a few can boast of a coherent beautiful emotionally colored speech among older preschoolers.
What to do if a child is “silent”, and how to develop a child’s speech
– Eliminate neurological problems.
– Children with speech problems – not only those who cannot pronounce sounds, but also those children who spoke late and their speech is poor and incorrect – should visit a speech therapy garden. They work there according to a special correctional program. But the garden is not a substitute for regular one-on-one sessions with a speech therapist. Better that they go in tandem.
– Be sure to seek advice at 3, 5 and 7 years old, even if you think that the child’s speech is okay. Not all parents see and know how the child’s articulatory apparatus should develop, whether phonemic development and the lexical and grammatical side of speech are normal, whether the development of all these functions corresponds to age.
– Love your child, play! Play is the only and main activity of a child before schooling.