Is Your Toddler Communicating with You?
• Does your toddler babble with a variety of consonant-vowel combinations?
• Do they appear to “practice” words they like?
• Are they imitating environmental sounds (i.e., animals, vehicles)?
• Are they two years old and not yet producing two word phrases (i.e., more please, want up)
• Are they using any “baby signs” to communicate?
• Do they point or grunt to get your attention?
• Do they respond when you call them by name?
• Are they able to identify named body parts or objects in pictures by pointing?
• Do they follow simple, related commands?
As children grow, their receptive and expressive language skills should develop simultaneously. This means that the amount of information that they comprehend should closely mirror the amount of sounds and words that they are producing.
Children develop at their own pace, but when is it time to be concerned that they are not meeting their speech and language milestones? If you answered yes to any of the above, it may be time for you to speak with your pediatrician regarding a referral for a global language evaluation with a speech-language pathologist.
At times, family members or pediatricians may say things like, “they could just be a late talker”, “let’s wait six months and see”, or “it’s okay, so and so didn’t talk until they were five." More often than not, there is a reason for the language delay. Early intervention is key to support your child in meeting their milestones. Trust your instincts. If you don’t think your child is meeting their speech and language milestones, speak to your pediatrician for a referral for an evaluation.
The American-Speech-Hearing Association (ASHA) has lists of developmental milestone charts from birth to five years old. Here you will find categories for listening and understanding, hearing, and expressive communication listed by age. ASHA is a great resource as it also lists recommendations for how to foster your child’s speech and language development at home.
For further reading, ASHA recommends the book, Beyond Baby Talk (Second Edition), by Karen Apel, Ph.D., CCC-SLP and Julie Masterson Ph.D., CCC-SLP
At Collaborative Corner, our licensed speech-language pathologists are eager to hear from you. Please visit our website at www.collaborativecorner.org where you can directly message one of our speech-language pathologists with any questions you may have about your child’s language development. This is free of charge and you will be provided with a very helpful and informative response within 24 hours.
Alyssa Bloxam, M.A., CCC-SLP
Co-Founder/Director of Operations, Speech-Language Pathologist
alyssa@collaborativecorner.org