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Hav­ing a late talk­er at home can be frus­trat­ing for par­ents and kids, as well. A child who can’t express his or her thoughts and emo­tions is more like­ly to act out. They anger eas­i­ly, and they may use unex­pect­ed behav­iour to get your attention! In this arti­cle, we are going to have a look at the cri­te­ria of late talk­ers. What Should you do if your child is a Late Talk­er? Along with Guide­lines for your Tod­dlers’ Mile­stones. How To Help Late Talk­er Tod­dler l Late Talk­er Tod­dler Boy l Late Talk­er Tod­dler bilin­gual l speech Delay Tod­dler Rea­sons l speech delay Tod­dler Boy l Tod­dlers and 

Late Talker

A “Late Talk­er” is a tod­dler (between 18–30 months) who has a good under­stand­ing of lan­guage, typ­i­cal­ly devel­op­ing play skills, motor skills, and social skills, but has a lim­it­ed spo­ken vocab­u­lary for his or her age. The dif­fi­cul­ty of late-talk­ing kids has specif­i­cal­ly with expres­sive lan­guage.  This group of chil­dren can be chal­leng­ing to under­stand because they have all of the build­ing blocks for spo­ken lan­guage, yet they don’t talk or talk very limited. Researchers have yet to agree upon an expla­na­tion for this spe­cif­ic delay. They have deter­mined that Late Talk­ers are more like­ly to be:
  • Males.
  • Hav­ing a fam­i­ly his­to­ry of ear­ly speech delay.
  • To have been born at less than 85% of their opti­mal birth weight or less than 37 weeks gestation.
  • Fac­ing atten­tion problems.

Does a kid who Is Late Talker Catch Up On his/her Own?

Because this group of chil­dren is pro­gress­ing so well in oth­er areas of devel­op­men­tal mile­stones, par­ents may assume that they will catch up on their own. It is a fact that many late talk­ers do “grow out of it,” but many do not. It can be dif­fi­cult to pre­dict which kids will not catch up to their peers. How­ev­er, a list of risk fac­tors has been iden­ti­fied, which sug­gests that a kid is more like­ly to have con­tin­u­ing lan­guage dif­fi­cul­ties. These include:
  • A fam­i­ly his­to­ry of speech delay.
  • Lit­tle bab­bling (Quite) to His/Her age.
  • A his­to­ry of ear infections.
  • No or lit­tle imi­tat­ing to words from surroundings.
  • He/She uses most­ly nouns (names of peo­ple, places) and a few verbs (action words).
  • A mild under­stand­ing ( Social skills ) delay for his or her age.
If a tod­dler has a lim­it­ed vocab­u­lary for his/her age and any of the above risk fac­tors, experts rec­om­mend con­sult­ing a speech pathologist.

Causes of Late talking stage

Researchers aren’t com­plete­ly cer­tain why some kids begin speak­ing lat­er than oth­ers, but one the­o­ry is that these kids have a dif­fer­ent learn­ing style. It appears that the brains of late talk­ers spend their ear­ly years focus­ing on ana­lyt­i­cal devel­op­ment instead of ver­bal development. Once this Ana­lyt­i­cal Devel­op­ment slows down, ver­bal devel­op­ment has a chance to catch up. Even into adult­hood, late-talk­ers tend to flour­ish in ana­lyt­i­cal fields but at times, fall behind in lan­guage-focused careers. Besides, brain scans show that a major­i­ty of late-talk­ers who are oth­er­wise neu­rotyp­i­cal use the right side of their brain for speech, instead of the more typ­i­cal left side. Some often-not­ed obser­va­tions of late-talk­ers include that they:
  • Late pot­ty trainers.
  • Very good at puz­zles and are curi­ous about how things are put togeth­er.
  • Strong-willed.
  • Are more like­ly to be left-hand­ed.

8 Things to do if your kid is a Late Talker:

How To Help Late Talker Toddler l Late Talker Toddler Boy l Late Talker Toddler bilingual l speech Delay Toddler Reasons l speech delay Toddler Boy l Toddlers and speech Therapy
If you think your child may be a late talk­er, it’s nev­er too ear­ly to seek help. We know that the ear­li­er we start to help our kids, the bet­ter their outcomes. And always remem­ber that ear­ly inter­ven­tion in speech dis­or­ders is key to long-term success! 

1- Don’t Wait it Out

Some par­ents hear that late-talk­ing can be a stage and decide to take the “wait and see” approach. Unfor­tu­nate­ly, if their kid is one of the 30–40% fac­ing devel­op­men­tal delays, they may miss out on the appro­pri­ate treat­ment dur­ing the appro­pri­ate time. If a child isn’t speak­ing at 18 months, par­ents should go to their Fam­i­ly Doc­tor or Pedi­a­tri­cian for a hear­ing exam and rule out any phys­i­cal caus­es. And from here, the child needs to be eval­u­at­ed by a speech pathologist.

2- The Earlier therapy.. the Better Result!

Late Talker Toddler l speech Delay Toddler Reasons Stud­ies state that most late-talk­ers catch up to their peers by age 5 or 6. In par­tic­u­lar, late-talk­ers seem to strug­gle with gram­mar, spelling, class­room dis­cus­sion, and at times with read­ing comprehension. By work­ing with late-talk­ers ear­ly on, you can improve their lan­guage skills and long-term lan­guage-based outcomes.

3- Be Patient on a confirmed Diagnosis

Let us face that diag­nos­ing late-talk­ers can be dif­fi­cult. They are well known for refus­ing to do things that don’t inter­est them. There­fore experts rec­om­mend reg­u­lar­ly re-eval­u­at­ing to dis­cov­er the child’s actu­al ability. Though you need to be patient to have a con­firmed diag­no­sis for a late talker.  Experts in late-talk­ing agree, though, that it’s worth tak­ing the road to diag­no­sis slow­ly; a false diag­no­sis can be worse than no diagnosis.

4- Your Time with your Kid is Precious

Your time with a child can be lim­it­ed by many things: fam­i­ly avail­abil­i­ty, finances, and oth­er per­son­al causes. Par­ents need to remain patient as they work with their tod­dlers on lan­guage devel­op­ment. You may notice that your kid is busy work­ing on his/her motor skills, and maybe lan­guage has tak­en a sec­ond pri­or­i­ty. Many times some motor skills are learned quick­ly, while oth­ers take a lit­tle more time. Show­er your late talk­er with praise and love for lit­tle lan­guage achieve­ment and keep the learn­ing fun! In the mean­time, to pro­mote your kid’s lan­guage skills, label any sounds he/she uses for words. For exam­ple, if he/she says “Ca” for “Car,” you should say, “Yes, that’s a car.” Con­tin­ue to talk and sing to him/her, ask him/her ques­tions, point out and iden­ti­fy the peo­ple and things that fill his/her world, and read togeth­er with try­ing to slow down and make sure your tod­dler is watch­ing you as you speak.

5- Read More Books

speech Delay Toddler Reasons l Toddlers and speech Therapy Pick out books that ful­ly engage your tod­dler. Whether it’s a book about their favourite stuffed ani­mal, car­toon char­ac­ter or just one with colour­ful pic­tures, read to them as often as possible. Look for age-appro­pri­ate soft, board or pic­ture books that encour­age kids to look while you name the pic­tures. Lat­er, let your child point to rec­og­niz­able pic­tures and give him/her a try to name them. Amazon Baby registry

6- Encouraging Two-way Communication

Encour­ag­ing two-way com­mu­ni­ca­tion is essen­tial to improve speech delay in tod­dlers. Tell them what’s hap­pen­ing as you do some­thing and wait for their response. Some­times it takes a while for a tod­dler to respond. Give them time to for­mu­late their words and don’t answer them. Ask sib­lings to not answer for them as well.

7- Try Not to Correct your kid’s words

It is impor­tant to build your toddler’s speech con­fi­dence. When work­ing to improve speech delay, remem­ber not to cor­rect your child.  No sound, word or response is wrong. Any Expres­sion is good progress! If they point to a dog and say “woo,” you can encour­age him/her by say­ing, ” It is a dog, says woof woof,” and so on.

8- Just talk more

Talk to your tod­dler through­out the day. Whether it’s bath time or you’re mak­ing them a snack, get their atten­tion and tell them what you’re doing. For exam­ple, while you are shop­ping, name foods at the gro­cery store, explain what you’re doing as you cook a meal or clean a room, point out objects around the house.

The Panic Button!

Late Talker Toddler l speech Delay Toddler Reasons l Toddlers and speech Therapy Let the pan­ic but­ton away! There’s a big chance your child could be a late talk­er. Tod­dlers who are late talk­ers do not nec­es­sar­i­ly have speech delays.  Some kids do have devel­op­men­tal delays when it comes to lan­guage, and the soon­er late talk­ers are iden­ti­fied and can get help, the bet­ter. So start by doing a lit­tle detec­tive work and always trust your inner instinct.
  • Watch how your child responds to what you say.
  • Does he/she under­stand ques­tions like, “Are you hun­gry?” ( Expres­sive Skills )
  • Can he/she fol­low basic com­mands like, “Please bring me the bot­tle”? ( Com­mu­ni­ca­tion Skills)
  • Does he/she com­mu­ni­cate non­ver­bal­ly (by point­ing, for exam­ple) when he/she wants something?
If so, those are good signs; your kid is prob­a­bly just a late talk­er. If he/she does­n’t seem to be able to fol­low what you’re say­ing or com­mu­ni­cate what he/she wants, con­sult your fam­i­ly doc­tor about speech delays in toddlers.
The fol­low­ing are  Gen­er­al Devel­op­men­tal Mile­stones. Keep in mind that they are only guide­lines.

12 to 18 Months

Around your child’s first birth­day, tod­dlers have a wide range of speech sounds. You’ll prob­a­bly be able to rec­og­nize at least one or two com­mon words such as “Dad­da” or “mama.” 
Over the fol­low­ing six months, though, you should start to see your child begin to devel­op more advanced com­mu­ni­ca­tion skills such as:
  • Look for and be able to find where a sound is coming.
  • Respond to their names most of the time when you call it.
  • Wave good­bye.
  • Look where you point when you say, “Look at the —–”
  • Bab­ble with into­na­tion (voice ris­es and falls as if they are speak­ing in sentences).
  • Take turns “talk­ing” with you—listen and pay atten­tion to you when you speak and then resume bab­bling when you stop.
  • Point to items they want that are out of reach or make sounds while pointing.
  • Try­ing to copy your words or others.
  • Imi­tat­ing the talk sequences they hear.

18 to 24 Months

On aver­age, though, by the time your kid reach­es age 2, you can expect to see him/her reach the fol­low­ing milestones:
  • Increas­ing­ly adding words to his/her vocab­u­lary.
  • Form­ing two-word phrases—although they won’t be gram­mat­i­cal­ly cor­rect (“no way,” “where go”)
  • Using words to iden­ti­fy pic­tures in a book or surroundings.
  • Get objects from anoth­er room when asked.
  • Point to a few body parts when asked.
  • Bring things to you to show you.
  • Point to objects, wait­ing to name or bring it to them.
  • Name a few every­day objects when asked.
  • Enjoy pre­tend­ing (pre­tend cooking).
  • Learn about one new word per week.
  • Say some 2‑word phras­es like “Mom go,” and “All gone.”

2 to 3 Years

Between 2 and 3 years old, usu­al­ly when par­ents see an explo­sion in kids’ ver­bal skills. It’s often said that a child’s vocab­u­lary grows to 200 or more words dur­ing this time. Some of the mile­stones to look for these years include:
  • Say­ing more words and pick­ing up new words that he/she hears regularly.
  • Com­bin­ing three or more words into sen­tences like” I want juice.” or ” bus go round.”
  • They begin to iden­ti­fy colours and shapes.
  • They try to sing nurs­ery rhymes and songs.
  • Begin­ning to express feel­ings with words (“I hun­gry,” “Mom cry”)
How To Help Late Talk­er Tod­dler l Late Talk­er Tod­dler Boy l Late Talk­er Tod­dler bilin­gual l speech Delay Tod­dler Rea­sons l speech delay Tod­dler Boy l Tod­dlers and 

Final Thought!

There is a wide range of nor­mal lan­guage devel­op­ment in tod­dlers. Com­par­ing one kid to anoth­er isn’t help­ful since kids hit mile­stones at dif­fer­ent times, and many fac­tors can influ­ence how much or how well a kid speaks. For instance, chil­dren who live in a bilin­gual home may take a lit­tle longer to become flu­ent in either lan­guage. The brain has to work hard­er to inter­pret and use two languages. So it may take longer for that kid to start using either one or both of the lan­guages they’re learn­ing. It’s not unusu­al for a bilin­gual child to use just one lan­guage for a while. (but in the long run, may have sig­nif­i­cant­ly bet­ter ver­bal skills than their peers). Always remem­ber that your kid does want to com­mu­ni­cate with you. Read to your kid and talk as much as you can. Encour­age your child to speak. When he or she tries to speak, praise their efforts! How To Help Late Talker Toddler l Late Talker Toddler Boy l Late Talker Toddler bilingual l speech Delay Toddler Reasons l speech delay Toddler Boy l Toddlers and speech Therapy
 

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