Why does my child need to see a speech therapist?

Many parents ask us a common question – “ why does my child need to see a speech therapist?”. It may be a bit embarrassing but you should not feel unpleasant to get your child the best speech therapy.

If you need more information or you have a question regarding Speech therapy, you can discuss it with our HearingSol healthcare professionals, just give us a call on +91-9327901950. We are always here to help you.

If a child has speech disabilities, trouble in pronouncing words with the help of speech therapy it may help him to improve communication, language development, and language skills, So the speech therapists are always in demand for children.

Speech therapy is a technique that improves child ability to understand and express languages. Having a speech therapy career will secure your future. But there are certain skills required and expected from a speech pathologist.

How Your Children’s Speech and Language Develops:

The speech therapy helps the child in rhyming and identifying the beginning sound in words. It helps children in understanding the meaning of what they read. They help children to improve social communication. And also how to pay attention to the other person’s tone of voice, body language, and emotions. Speech Therapist teaches the strategies to control stuttering(communication disorder) and thus increases speech fluency and intelligibility. It also helps to recover the cognitive-communication disorder which is caused by the result of stroke, traumatic brain injury and dementia.

There are some milestones in the development of our children’s speech and language –

At 18 months milestones:

• Identifies things like rabbit, cat, dog, cat, or doll.
• Answers the what-is-this question.
• Your baby can say ‘no’ correctly.
• Use about ten words of vocabulary.

At 2-year-old milestones:

• Sings simple nursery songs and says rhymes (i.e, twinkle twinkle little star).
• Can identify pictures in books.
• Strings two words together (i.e, football gone or cat come).
• Loves storytime.

At 3-year-old milestones:

• Makes communication.
• Uses some syntax.
• Can make a larger sentence.
• Says words with consonant endings clearly.

At 4-year-old milestones:

• Can pretend-play with other children using words.
• Can use more difficult grammar.
• Tells a short story.
• Can answer questions like ‘about how’ and ‘who’ and ‘how many’ etc.

At 5-year-old milestones:

• Can understand when and why.
• Can converse and make their thought known to you.
• Is learning reading.
• Talks about anything.
• Talk about the past and the concept of tomorrow.

Causes

Speech delay in a generally developing child because of an oral impedance, similar to issues with the tongue or sense of taste (the top of the mouth).

Numerous children with speech delays have oral-motor problems. These happen when there’s an issue in the brain which is responsible for the speech part. It makes difficult to sync the lips, tongue, and jaw to deliver sounds. These children likewise may have other oral-engine issues, for example, feeding problem.

Hearing issues are additionally related to speech delay. That is the reason an audiologist should test a kid’s hearing at whatever point there’s a speech delay concern. Children who experience difficulty in the hearing may experience difficulty articulating just as comprehending, copying, and utilizing language.

When Is Speech Therapy Needed?

Who are deaf or suffering from hearing loss and possibly have communication. therapy will include work on speech voice and conversation. Speech therapists do handle those speech issues and disorders. But they also help kids who are facing the problem in spoken and written language, such as dyslexia, dyspraxia, and auditory processing disorder. What is and isn’t normal when it comes to language and speech development is extremely important. The question strikes what are the conditions which need speech therapy.

Speech pathologists assess and treat difficulties in:

• Speech (pronunciation)
• Language (understanding and using words and sentences)
• Stuttering
• Literacy (reading and writing)
• Social skills
• Listening and auditory processing
• Voice
• Swallowing

Following are some sign or symptoms of a speech or language disorder when you may need a speech therapist:

You must consult a specialist if your child is doing any of the following:

• If your child doesn’t smile or interacting socially with others from infancy to 3 months of age.
• If your child takes only a few sounds, words, or gestures between a year and 18 months.
• When you or another one can’t understand what your child is saying or voice is too much clear between 18 months to 2 years.
• If your children aren’t pairing two or more words with one another by the age of 2, parents may want to consult an expert.
• If your children your child struggles to make sounds or doesn’t roll off the tongue for 18 months to 2 years, consider it a red flag.
• Not pointing to items in books (if you say, “display me the kitty cat,” she flips the page or repeats the word but does not point to the animal).
• If the child is not changing or developing her language tons from month to month
• When the child uses a particular word once rather than using it again.
• May not seeming frustrated when you don’t know what she wants.
• When a child is mispronouncing the words. For example: Pronouncing Cow as Coo.
• The child is not using various words and phrases according to their developmental stage.

Always read up on developmental milestones so that you have a realistic idea of what to expect at what age from your kid. The speech therapist and your child must be a good match. The speech therapist should have experience working with kids with your child’s specific issue.

How are speech or language disorder diagnosed by a speech therapist for children?

Diagnosing of the speech and language disorder of your children is very important to be done at the early stage so that you can proceed to treatment as fast as you can for the betterment of your child.

I will suggest you to properly look after your children and identify whether there is any signs or symptoms of speech disorder. If it is so then it’s important to get an early evaluation by a speech-language pathologist(SLP).

The speech-language pathologist will evaluate your children by testing their speech and language development. The pathologist will perform some test and can also ask some questions to your children.

The speech-language pathologist can assess

• The understanding of your child also known as receptive language.
• What your child can speak also known as expressive language.
• He will check out, if your child is trying to communicate in other ways like pointing, gesturing, head shaking, etc.
• Clarity of speech and sound development.
• The oral-motor status of your child can also be checked. How the mouth, palate, is working. The specialist can also check whether there is a problem in eating or swallowing.

What parents can do?

To help the kids having the speech disorder, the parents should get involved.

There are a few ways through which the parents can provide speech therapy at home:

• Spend lots of time with your children and try to communicate with them: If your child has a speech and language disorder then you should spend time with your child as much as you can. This will encourage your child and help them to overcome their disorder of speech and language.
• Read to your child: Start reading in front of the child when he is a baby. You can narrate the story to your child as many people do. Take the help the picture that will encourage your child to look when you are reading. Let your children point to a recognizable picture and name them this will develop language and speech in them. You can also take the help of the nursery rhymes that have a rhythmic appeal.
• Use Everyday situations: The parents can take the help of the everyday situations that will help your child to develop the language and speech skills into them. The parents can create situations and make the child give their best to solve it.