Golden time to intervene children with speech delay

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Children are diagnosed with language delay when they pronounce words well, but can only put 2 words together. Children who are slow to speak mean that they can use words and phrases to express themselves but are difficult to understand. These two possibilities need to be distinguished for timely intervention.

1. Normal language development in children

From 3 to 6 months: Babies begin to look intently at the person talking. Turn your head towards the source of the sound. Distinguish different sounds coming from different locations. Can speak vowels "a", words "ba", "grandmother".
7 - 9 months: Children often repeat the same syllables. Know how to use gestures as well as activities to attract attention.
9 - 12 months: Babbling starts. Children will use head and body gestures to express requests.
12 - 15 months: Children can use 7 or more words. They often use their voice and gestures to get what they want. Imitate new words as well as speak close to single words.
From 15 to 18 months: Can use 20 or more words (single word). When children are 18 months old, they begin to speak and put together two words by themselves and say many meaningful words. At this stage, speaking children begin to form sentence orders as well as reduce gestures, use more words to communicate.
From 18 months to 2 years old: Know about 25 words, name people, say hello, say no.
From 2 - 3 years old: Talks a lot, knows from 50 to 200 words, self-talk while playing. By age 3, children create a phrase with a full subject component. Children know how to use simple sentences, ask simple questions. Children can answer questions such as: what, where? Yes/no. After this stage, children will be able to speak and will create momentum for children to develop a lot of complex sentences, form long stories with quite logical content.
From 3 - 4 years old: Children can speak complex sentences, begin to use those languages ​​quite well. Self-control voice intensity, build intonation like adults, often ask what, where, why,...

2. Signs that a child is slow to speak

Some signs of child delay in speech:
2 years old only pronounces or says a few simple words 3 years old can't answer name, age and can't speak short sentences. 4 years old can't ask questions like Why? Who's that ? Where? The number of sentences is less than 8 sentences. 5 years old does not know how to tell stories that children like or talk about dreams in the future with the word "will". In addition, children also have expressions such as:
Unhappy or shy, clinging to their mother. Gets angry or cries easily. Or hit you or spend toys with you. Don't play with your parents or with friends. At each stage, children make improvements in communication. Especially during the first 5 years of life, this is an important time in preparing for learning. In which, the first 3 years are the golden time of early diagnosis and intervention for children with speech delay. Children without early intervention will lead to limited expression of opinions and emotions, leading to inappropriate behaviors such as aggression and stress. This hinders children's later making friends as well as affects their learning to explore the world around them.

3. What to do when the child is slow to speak?

Parents need to take care to help their children improve their language skills depending on their age. Encouraging children to practice speaking is the first thing to do because children can hear and understand very early, before they can speak on their own.
Need to talk to children often, read to them, encourage them to focus on you, on something you want to talk about. Should talk about things that are in front of you, or things that are happening. Don't force your child to speak, but remember to give praise when your child learns to speak. Listen attentively, give your child time to act on what he is about to say, as well as often give encouragement such as "You are very good at speaking", helping your child boldly practice speaking.
Teach children simple words that are easy to understand. It is best to teach children to speak based on everyday situations, creating many different situations when talking about a certain word. Teaching your child to hear different sounds or practice communicating through pictures or gestures are also ways to help them practice speaking well. Children should not watch too much TV, need to control time and TV programs. Parents should watch together with their children programs such as cartoons, music and comment on the details, characters, and dialogues in the movie to help children build language reflexes.
When noticing that children have any signs that they are slow to speak, parents should first not worry too much, but take the child to a pediatric specialist medical facility for a doctor to check. Depending on the degree of speech delay and the age of the child, the doctor will have appropriate interventions to improve the delay in speech in children.