I spend my week doing two “jobs”. The first “job” is being a Mum to my 1 year old daughter and the other is being a part time Speech-Language Therapist, working with children. Both of these jobs I love. I love being able to watch my daughter and the children I work with develop their communication, it is so rewarding!
When I meet people and let them know I am a Speech-Language Therapist, they often have questions about their child or a child they know and whether their speech or language is developing ‘normally’- and I often ask myself these questions as a parent as well! Obviously there is a wide range of what is ‘normal’, but below I will talk about a few of the most common questions and comments I hear.
My child doesn’t seem to say much… what is normal for their age?
The general guideline for this is that a child will have an average phrase length of their age, up to about 5. For example, a 1 year old generally only uses single words where a 2 year old is starting to put 2 words together (e.g. dog sleep, more juice etc). Remember that the phrases won’t always be complete or sound exactly right, but they will get there!
When your child is starting to say their first words try writing a list of the words they can say and add to it when you notice new ones- you may be surprised how many words they have actually said and how quickly the list grows!
I can understand my child most of the time, but others seem to find them hard to understand…
This seems to be something I hear a lot and it is totally normal. It makes sense too. When you are around a child a lot, you know them so well that they often don’t need to say things perfectly for you to know exactly what they are saying, where others who do not know them as well rely more on what the child is actually saying.
As children are still learning language and speech sounds, errors are common and this all impacts on the ability for others to understand. On average an unfamiliar person may understand approximately 50% of what a 2 year old is saying and by 4 years this increases to being able to understand almost 100%.
This website, http://www.speech-language-therapy.com/intelligibility.htm has useful information on a child’s intelligibility.
If your child is in childcare and they are finding it difficult to understand what your child is saying, let them know what you do when you can’t understand your child so they can use the same strategies at the centre to help reduce frustration for the child and adult. For example, I ask my daughter to point to what she wants. Sometimes I still don’t get it exactly right but it shows I am trying to understand and help and acknowledges her attempt to communicate.
What should I do if I think my child might have a speech or language delay?
- The first thing I would always check is whether they have had a hearing test and take them for one if they haven’t. A hearing loss can really impact on a child’s ability to learn speech and language. If they have frequent ear infections of glue ear, this can also impact a child’s speech and language development.
- Talk to your child’s preschool and see if they have any concerns or can offer any advice on how to help encourage your child’s speech and language development.
- If you or the preschool are concerned, then I suggest you contact a Speech Language Therapist, either through the Ministry of Education or through a private SLT (look in the yellow pages or try searching on the Internet for SLTs in your area)
- Keep talking to your child about all that is going on around them (even if you may feel a bit silly sometimes!)and give plenty of opportunities for them to try and communicate. As I said earlier, try making a list of all the words they can say (or even words/questions they understand!). You may surprise yourself at how much they know and it’s also very useful information for an SLT if you do go to see one!
- As I said- I love my jobs and watching children learning to communicate and I love to share information with others, so if there is any questions or topics you would like to know more about, let me know (by leaving a comment below).In the mean time, just keep communicating with those around you. You will be surprised how even smiling at a child is teaching them so much!
October 25, 2011 at 10:56 am
