A 1.5-year-old child does not speak: answers to parents’ questions from a speech therapist - defectologist

The second year of a baby’s life is the stage of primary language acquisition. The pre-speech stage has already been passed, when the baby walked, babbled, and uttered the first sounds. Starting from the age of one year, the baby slowly masters words that are meaningful to him. But, sometimes it happens that a child does not speak at 1.5 years old, although by the age of one year his active vocabulary should have about 6 words. Active vocabulary is the words that he uses in his speech (passive vocabulary is words whose meaning he knows and understands, but he does not pronounce them).

Development norms

Doctors have approved certain age limits for each child’s skill. But it is worth considering that they are all approximate, that is, deviations from them are quite acceptable.

According to modern psychologists, at one and a half years old children should:

• actively move (get up, walk, fall, try to climb everywhere);
• play “okay”;
• be able to clench your fist;
• clap your hands if something works;
• play with household objects (pots, ladle, spoons, etc.);
• repeat simple everyday actions (combing yourself, your parents or toys, rolling cars or a stroller on the floor, etc.);
• understand requests (it is not necessary to fulfill them correctly);
• respond to the name (provided that he hears it at home when addressed to himself);
• do one thing for no more than 10 minutes;
• point to an item that aroused interest;
• put rings on the pyramid (their order does not matter);
• make rhythmic movements to music;
• digging through clothes, taking them out of closets and drawers;
• cry if what is happening does not suit him;
• throw objects and be happy about it.

Healthy children between one and two years old do at least half of this list. Speech is not an indicator of a child’s development during this period of time. Although you can still hear from old-school neurologists about 20 words that a baby should pronounce.

Neurologists call a “word” any syllable or vowel that denotes an object (mu is a word, ma is also a word).

By the age of two, recognizable meaningful words should appear. But even if this does not happen, another 3-6 months are given to monitor the child. Next, they look at other development indicators and decide whether to wait until they are 3 years old or start classes with a speech therapist. Thus, a child of one and a half years may not speak a single word that adults can understand. And this will be considered a variant of the norm.

How to teach a child to say “mama”?

So, if your baby, according to doctors, is developing in accordance with the norm, he does not have any special problems, but for some reason he has not started talking, parents can force things a little.

The main condition for the correct formation of speech is communication. The biggest misconception of some mothers and fathers is that they think that the child does not understand them yet, and therefore there is no need to talk to him. This is not true at all!

The more you communicate with your baby, the more words will be in his passive vocabulary. This means that over time they will become active. In addition, it is by listening to speech addressed to him that the child learns to speak!

How to communicate with a small child:

• Use the correct forms of words in your speech. Undoubtedly, many kids say “bo-bo” about a scratch or “beep-beep” about all types of transport. This sounds very nice, but parents should not make it easy for their child to learn. Let the “long” words remain in a passive form for some time, but over time the baby will speak as he should!
• Try to speak in simple words that the child can understand. Repeat them many times every day.
• Speak as clearly as possible and face your baby. It is by “reading” articulation that the child learns to pronounce new words.
• Create the illusion of dialogue. Ask questions and answer them yourself. But take a short break, give the child the opportunity to insert a familiar word at one point.
• Talk about everything. Comment on the process of dressing, washing, talk about what you see while walking, and so on. After all, the baby learns the world with the help of his parents.
• Do not turn on television or radio in the background. Such sounds are not perceived by small children as speech, which means they will not teach him anything.
• Use your pacifier less often. How will a baby talk if his mouth is always busy? In addition, constant sucking can ruin your bite and lead to poor articulation.

Reasons for the lag

Many factors influence a child’s speech development.

They are divided into several groups:

• organic (diseases of the nervous system, inner and middle ear, traumatic brain injuries, prematurity, hypoxia and injuries during childbirth, bad habits of the mother and extragenital pathologies of the pregnant woman);
• physiological (early cessation of breastfeeding, delayed transition to food in pieces, hypotonicity of the muscles of the articulatory apparatus, malocclusion);
• psychological (stress, tense family relationships);
• social (family dysfunction, lack of communication between adults and with the child, or overprotection when the motivation to speak disappears).

Most causes are reversible—they can be prevented or corrected. Organic lesions are treated by a neurologist, who can be consulted about speech. He will find out the child’s level of development and the degree of brain damage. If it is small, you can do without drugs and procedures, and pay a little more attention to classes on making sounds.

Possible symptoms and causes of speech delay

When caring about the timely development of your child, you should not rely on independently obtained information about the norm and pathology; it is better to trust a specialist. In the age of information technology, you can, even without being a resident of a metropolis, get remote consultation on any issue.

First of all, you need to contact a pediatric neurologist, since speech is a process controlled by the central nervous system. Since speech is a process that took shape later than all mental functions, that is why this fragile formation is the first to suffer from disorders of the central nervous system. In rare cases, late speech development is genetically determined in members of the same family.

In what cases should you consult a neurologist at one and a half years:

• there is no speech at all, or there is incomprehensible babble;
• the child points or shouts when he needs something;
• the baby does not repeat after adults the syllables and simple words “mom, baba, dad, kitty, give, na”;
• speech first appeared and then disappeared.

Before visiting a doctor, you should prepare to provide him with complete information about the course of pregnancy and childbirth. The specialist will be interested in whether there was any pathology of pregnancy, fetal hypoxia, asphyxia during childbirth, when the child cried, his Apgar score, and other similar information.

Possible causes of speech delay:

• incompatibility of the Rh factor of mother and child;
• infectious diseases suffered by a woman during pregnancy, late gestosis in pregnant women;
• birth injuries leading to MMD (minimal cerebral dysfunction), hypoxia, asphyxia of the newborn;
• pedagogical neglect, when children are given insufficient attention;
• head injuries, neuroinfections.

It is quite possible that the parents’ fears will not be confirmed, and speech development proceeds normally, but with a slight delay. However, it is better to take up the prevention and correction of speech disorders in a timely manner than to lament the lost time later. From the age of 2, children can study with a speech therapist and a speech pathologist.

Diagnosis of the condition

If parents are concerned about the lack of speech in a child of 1.5 years, they should start a diagnosis with a neurologist. He will assess the risks of organic brain damage and prescribe the necessary examination. If the patient has no pathologies of the central nervous system, then drug treatment is not required.

The next step is to visit a neuropsychologist. It determines the correspondence of mental development to age. If discrepancies are detected, the doctor gives recommendations for correction at home. It is better to contact this specialist with the whole family. Often, a child’s speech problems lie in relationships between adults, which can only be noticed from the outside.

The third stage of the search is a speech therapist. He will not take a one-and-a-half-year-old baby to classes, but he can check the articulatory maturity of the apparatus and show exercises to perform at home. After a few months, it is worth going for a second consultation to monitor the pace of the child’s development.

Preschool age

Three-year-olds are already able to express the simplest judgments, generalize, establish the simplest relationships and distinguish between similar objects.

Vocabulary by the age of 4 is about 2000 words . The child increasingly uses pronouns, adjectives, adverbs in speech, and numerals appear. Sentences are constructed according to the laws of grammar, and he gives detailed answers to questions. Speech becomes clearer, most sounds are pronounced clearly. However, despite significant progress, speech is still far from perfect. Therefore, do not worry if a three-year-old child cannot yet coherently talk about a walk or retell a fairy tale. You should not be alarmed by grammatical errors or inaccuracies in the use of auxiliary parts of speech. This will correct itself by 6-7 years. However, even at this age, errors in the use of individual case forms are still common.

By the same age, children, as a rule, master the correct pronunciation of all consonant sounds: by the age of 4 - whistling sounds ([s], [s'], [z], [z'], [ts]); by 5 years – hissing ([w], [z], [ts], [h]), by 6 years – sonorous ([р], [р'], [л], [л'], [й] ).

If a child of 6 years old cannot pronounce, pronounces one or more sounds incorrectly or distortedly, the help of a speech therapist is needed.

Principles of speech development

If a child does not speak at 1.5 years old, you should pay attention to what he does during the day.

Several points need to be included in the routine:

1. Development of gross motor skills (running, climbing over obstacles, climbing stairs, swimming).
2. Fine motor skills activities (playing with materials of different textures - pasta, cereals, dried beans, various fabrics and special toys with small parts).
3. Talk more (parents should talk through their every action and what they do with the child).
4. Eliminate gadgets and cartoons (they create passivity in speech - they teach you to listen, but not speak).
5. Sing songs (especially favorite ones that the child knows and will try to repeat).
6. Encourage conversation (the baby should not just moo, but ask for the item he needs, and not get what he wants in any other way).

By following these rules, you will be able to create an ideal environment for the development of a child’s speech. And parents, not doctors, should help him with this. Therefore, up to 3 years of age, much attention is paid to home activities with children.

How to see speech development disorder

Before you conduct an independent diagnosis of speech development, you should rule out hearing impairment in your baby. If he does not hear the speech of others well, then he will not be able to reproduce it. Such a check can be carried out by an audiologist or otolaryngologist at the request of the parents. They turn to specialists if children do not use their voice to attract attention, do not react to a loud sound outside their field of vision, and do not turn towards the source of the sound.

An important indicator of the norm is the development of gross and fine motor skills. If the baby is clumsy, in the second half of the year he cannot pick up a small toy with two fingers, draw doodles, or build a small tower of cubes, most likely his motor skills are not well developed.

The easiest way is to check your baby’s understanding of speech, that is, the fullness of his passive vocabulary:

• ask him to fulfill the adult’s request;
• show an object named by an adult, body parts;
• offer to choose one toy named by adults from several.

In conclusion, the condition of the organs of articulation - lips, palate, tongue - is assessed. The tongue may have a shortened frenulum, be too large, or too small. If parents notice that the tongue is trembling, the baby is constantly salivating, and the mouth is always slightly open, perhaps there is no speech due to a neuropathological pathology - dysarthria.