OLDPediatric Teletherapy

PEDIATRIC TELETHERAPHY

Child Languag Developmet

Child Language Development

There are many aspects to language based therapy. This includes receptive language, expressive language, and pragmatics (social language). Language therapy can focus on a number of areas, including play and joint attention, expanding utterances, vocabulary development, grammar, following directions, and asking and answering questions. A child may exhibit a language delay or impairment for a number of reasons, some of which include hearing loss, problems in pregnancy or at birth, specific disorders, brain injuries, family history of language disorders, or unknown reasons.

Receptive language: refers to how your child understands or comprehends language.
Expressive language: refers to how your child uses language through words, pictures, signs, gestures, or AAC to communicate or express wants, needs, thoughts, ideas, and feelings.
Pragmatics: refers to social language skills we use to interact and have conversations with others. This can include turn taking, non-verbal communication (gestures, eye contact, facial expressions, body language), intonation, back and forth conversational turns, and maintaining the topic of conversation.

Every child develops at their own rate. There are language milestones in which children typically acquire different skills at different ages. A child may need language therapy if they do not meet certain milestones. Speech/Language therapy can provide an evaluation to determine the child’s strengths and needs. Collaboration with families is also vital to determine your concerns and needs and develop individualized goals.

Questions to ask yourself about your child:

Does my child get frustrated when they need/want something?
How does my child tell me what they want?
Does my child understand what I say?

Signs your child may have a language delay/disorder:

My child screams or cries every time they need help
My child avoids social interactions with familiar people.
My child hits me or throws things instead of using their words.
My child is not babbling by 12 months
My child is not using any words by 15 months
My child has trouble following directions
My child is not using any sentences by 3 years old

Speech Sound Production

Speech refers to how we pronounce or say sounds and words. There are various types of speech sound disorders including articulation, phonological, and Childhood Apraxia of Speech (CAS).

Articulation: focused on errors or substitutions/distortions for specific sounds.
Phonological speech sound disorders: refers to predictable rule-based patterns or errors that affect more than one sound.
CAS: is a neurological speech sound disorder that affects the motor planning and movement for speech production.

A child may exhibit one of these speech sound disorders or a combination. Speech therapy can provide an evaluation to determine the type of speech sound disorder and provide the appropriate treatment/strategies for your child.

Questions to ask yourself about your child:

Do you understand your child when they talk to you?
Do other people understand your child when they talk?

Signs your child may exhibit a speech sound disorder:

Deleting sounds in words (“poon” for “spoon”)
Using a different sound for the correct one (“wabbit” for “rabbit”)
Sound or word is difficult to understand
Deleting a syllable (“tephone” for “telephone”)
Inconsistent errors on consonant and vowel sounds
Inappropriate prosody
Groping movements of the mouth when speaking
Increased difficulty producing longer words
Slower rate of speech
Vowel errors

Language Milestones

Birth-1 year:

Makes cooing sounds (birth-3mon)
Makes babbling sounds “pa, ma, ba” (4-6mon)
Turns and looks in the direction of sounds (7mon-1year)
Understands some words “no”, “cup”, “car” (7mon-1year)
Babbles strings of sounds (“bababa, mimimi”) (7mon-1year)
Points to objects (7mon-1year)
Uses some gestures (waves hi, reaches for up) (7mon-1year)
Says 1 or 2 words (ex. Hi, mama, uh-oh) (1 year)

1-2 years:

Follows simple directions
Responds to questions (“where’s your shoe?”)
Points to pictures in a book
Uses new words
Starts to name pictures in books
Begins to put 2 words together (“more apple”, “no bed”)

2-3 years:

Follows two part directions
People who know your child can understand them
Puts 3 words together

3-4 years:

Answers simple who, what, where questions
Uses pronouns “I, you, me, we”
Puts 4 words together

4-5 years:

Follows longer directions
Understands most of what you tell them
Tells a short story
Starts to hold a conversation