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By two years old, Holly Budd?s son, Owen, could only say a few words. ?When I was with other kids his age, I noticed how some children were speaking in sentences,? says Budd. But the Edmonton mom wasn?t overly concerned because Owen could understand instructions and had his own ?words? for certain things . By the time he was two and a half, Owen?s language had caught up.
Owen was a typical ?late talker??a child who has a limited spoken-word vocabulary but has other language skills, such as being able to understand words spoken to him and communicate using gestures and a variety of speech sounds, until suddenly he has what Judy Meintzer, president of Speech-Language and Audiology Canada, calls a ?language explosion.? Other children, like Ally Gasco?s son, Evan, experience more serious speech delays. ?He was never really a babbly baby,? recalls Gasco, who lives in Burlington, Ont. By age two, Evan could only say about 10 one-syllable words, so she took him to see a private speech-language pathologist. Tests revealed that Evan had chronic fluid in his ears that was affecting his hearing and, consequently, his speech. Gasco noticed improvements after ear tube surgery, but Evan continued to have oral motor challenges, meaning he has difficulty making the muscles in his mouth, tongue and lips form the shapes necessary to make sounds.
So how do you know if your child is just a late talker or truly delayed" Babbling, gesturing and using sounds like ?ma? for...