Learning to speak is a natural process which follows a set pattern among all the children. Generally it is seen that even an infant turns his head to see in the direction of the noise. So it is a proven fact that speech and hearing goes together. The child will tend to speak those words which he hears. What ever he hears gets embedded in his mind and increases his vocabulary and he uses them in his speech. Normal speech development covers a wide range of styles. It is common to notice that some children speak clearly but say very little; others chatter away the whole day, but in a language which others may find hard to understand. In general, if a two-year-old child understands what is said to her, and communicates using gestures and facial expressions and pronounces some words then there is no need to worry.

It is seen quite common that children start talking at the age of two. But it is common to find that 14-20% of pre school children have problem with their speech pattern though this may last only for few more years and there is nothing much to worry. But some times it may so happen that it carries on for a longer time and it becomes a point of concern as they may be thought as retarded.

There are two sets of children who do not start to speak at proper time. One set of children show drawn-out within themselves and another set who show intelligence and excellent mental capacities. A parent can assess how well his child speaks by looking into his speech pattern and talking note of his vocabulary, fluency, articulation, comprehension, voice etc There is a need to worry about the first set of children and they may be retarded while the second set of children are quite normal with a high amount of intelligence. Both these set of children should be handled with care love and affection.

Extra care should be placed while handling the second set as they may be very often treated as retarded children and their ambition being shattered. We have to find out the reasons why such children who show a high amount of intelligence do not speak properly. It has been proved that if the child is feeling that he is not being listened properly and is ignored then he tends to talk less. It is because’ If they feel that parents and others are focusing not on what they say, but how they say it, they may come to feel they’re being attacked for expressing their feelings and thoughts, which can have negative emotional consequences” as quoted by Jayne Comins.

If the child is speaking less or very few words it is not a cause to be panicked but you can very easily tackle this problem by showing care and affection and making him feel secure. The more secure he feels the more he will try to express. Some times it may also happen that the child tries to speak out some thing which he finds difficult and is being made fun of then he will never try to speak out those words again as he will feel humiliated. That is why it is clearly said that the child should feel secure and safe so that he can express himself freely.

It is really difficult to say why the speech pattern differs -Why some child speak early and some late; some are chatter box while some speak very less. It may be due to any of the following reasons-normal delay, late speech development, genetic problem, Social/environmental, Emotional trauma, Neurological, Repeated ear infections, Dyspraxia or it may be concentrating on some other development like motor development.

But whatever the reason is -Routine developmental checks as a toddler may help in  preventing early speech problems.

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Tags: language delopment, speech development