The child has not spoken Komarovsky for a year and a half. The child does not say: what should I do? Delayed speech development

At 2 years old, the child should already be able to speak. Read the article to know the reasons why a baby does not talk at 2 years old, but only hums, but understands everything.

Young parents are always worried when their child has problems with the timely formation of speech. It often happens that the baby simply grows at his own pace and after a while he begins to talk no less than his peers.

But speech problems can be much deeper and it is important to recognize them in a timely manner and try to eliminate them.
Correction should begin at the age of 1.5-2 years in order to achieve good results.
In this article you can find information about why such disorders occur and how to get your child to talk.
Which specialist should you contact and what do leading pediatricians from different countries say about this problem?

The child does not speak at 2 years old, only hums, but understands everything: reasons

Often, parents of a 2-year-old child do not pay attention to the fact that their baby does not speak. But, if his intellect is well developed, he understands adults and fulfills their requests, maintains contact with parents, actively communicates with gestures and has no hearing problems, but a child of 2 years does not speak - this is not the norm. This condition is called expressive language disorder.

Pediatricians and speech therapists identify two types of reasons why a child does not speak at 2 years old, but only hums, but understands everything:

Social
Physiological

The child does not speak at 2 years old, only hums, but understands everything

These two types of problems may be associated with the following reasons why the baby does not speak:

External reasons. The baby has no motivation. He feels a lot of care and therefore there is no incentive to speak. You need to talk to the baby. If he only hears voices from the TV or tablet, then such a child will not talk.
Internal reasons. These include hereditary factors, neurological problems and impaired development of articulation organs. If one of the parents began to speak late in childhood, then their son or daughter may repeat the situation, but with each generation the problem may worsen. So be on your guard. A child will not be able to pronounce sounds if he has a short frenulum of the tongue, decreased tone of the facial muscles, or suffered injuries at an early age.

Important: Often a problem with a child’s speech apparatus occurs if all the adults in the family speak different languages. Bilingualism of relatives leads to the fact that the child cannot identify the lexemes of one language or another.

Advice: Also, do not be overly demanding and do not demand that your child talk. You need to create motivation, and not put pressure on the baby.

How to teach a 2-year-old child to talk: exercises, games, developmental activities

At 2 years old, a child has an excellent understanding of the world around him, but not all children at this age use their vocabulary. As mentioned above, many children may have speech problems, both internal and external. Therefore, if your baby does not speak at 2 years old, you should perform special effective exercises with him, play games, and conduct developmental activities:

Game with cards. Make cards and draw or stick animals or vehicles on them. Ask your child to take out one card and name what is shown on it. Let the baby think, don’t rush him. If the child is confused and cannot name the word, then after 15 seconds name the word yourself, clearly pronouncing it syllable by syllable.
Children's joke poems.“Okay-okay” and other rhymes help to develop speech perfectly. You can use any interesting poems from your child’s favorite children’s book.
Game "Who Says What". Ask your child to repeat the animal sounds. First ask him: “What does the dog say?”, “What does the pussy say?” If the child does not pronounce the words himself, then after 10-15 seconds you need to pronounce the correct answers.
Stupid adult. If your child shows with gestures or individual sounds that he wants, for example, an apple, then you pretend that you don’t understand and ask him: “Do you want a spatula? No? Maybe I can give you a bucket?” Don’t torment your child for too long, 3 “wrong” answers will be enough, otherwise the baby may cry.
Who's in the bag? Place several of your child's favorite animal toys in a small cloth bag. Opening the bag slightly, show only the head of one toy, and ask the baby to name the animal.
Who's talking? For two years old, it is normal if the baby does not name the animal or object, but repeats the sounds they make. You can only ask: “How is it raining? - Kap-Kap", "How does the bell ring? “Ding-ding” and so on.
Exercises to develop facial muscles. Articulation gymnastics will help develop speech. But it is difficult to get a small child to do any exercise. The best option is to pretend in front of a mirror. Ask your child to pretend to be a monkey and stick out his tongue, or have him pretend to be a lion and show his teeth.
We develop fine motor skills of the hands. In the area of the fingertips there are receptors that affect the brain's motor center. It is located next to the speech part of the brain. All games involving fingering small objects, as well as modeling or regular finger massage are suitable for developing fine motor skills. Just choose games with objects that are not too small, otherwise your baby may put them in his mouth, nose or ear.

Many parents note that after they sent their child to kindergarten, the baby began to speak. Being with other children, the child quickly learns all life skills, including speech. If by the age of 2.5-3 years your baby has not spoken like that, you should contact a speech pathologist and neurologist. Perhaps the reason is still too deep.

Video: Speech therapist for fidgets: 5 games to start speech [Loving mothers]

A 2-year-old child does not speak: Komarovsky

Many doctors of the old school argue that a 2-year-old child should be able to speak sentences of 2-3 words and pronounce conjunctions in sentences. If the child does not have this skill, it means that they are in a hurry to make a diagnosis of “mental retardation.”

But modern pediatricians are not so categorical, because they take into account the individual characteristics of the child.
For example, Dr. Komarovsky is sure that if a child at 2 years old does not speak, then parents should pay more attention to their baby. What is important is not just the result, but the tendency towards normal development.
If a child at 2 years old knows 10-15 words, and at 3 years old he also knows only 15 words, then this is a reason for concern. If a child by the age of 3 already repeats 30 words, although this is not enough, he has a tendency to develop, then there is no need to worry.

For more information about this, watch the video with Dr. Komarovsky:

Video: When and what to do if the child does not speak? — Dr. Komarovsky

The formation of speech in children does not obey strict rules. A child who begins to speak at 2 years of age is not necessarily healthier or more developed than his “silent” peer. There are approximate dates for the appearance of speech, which in practice shift depending on the rate of vocabulary accumulation, the physical and psychological state of the baby, the desire and reluctance to talk.

When does a child start talking?

Normally, speech develops from the mindless imitation of sounds to the conscious formation of sentences. The stage of its complication is as follows.

In the first year of life, a baby learns to form syllables into simple words: “mom”, “dad”. Communicates his own needs in monosyllables, does not use phrases, and does not try to express himself in whole sentences.
At one and a half years old, the child begins to try words that are more complex: those consisting of three or more syllables. Remembers the names and degrees of relationship of relatives who are constantly nearby, the names of familiar surrounding objects, toys. Accumulates vocabulary, tries to compose phrases. The latter occurs as an imitation of adults. There is no full meaningfulness in the attempts yet.
At 2 years old, on average, a child knows 300 words and has a general understanding of sentence construction. Accompanying gestures and facial expressions are added to words and simple phrases. Over this year, the baby learns that speech is a way to communicate with other people, and not just signal needs.

Lack of speech at 2 years old is not a reason to panic. It is more important to understand what is the reason for the “lag”. The causes are divided into anatomical, physiological and psychological.

Main reasons for silence

Birth and congenital injuries. With disorders of intrauterine development, areas of the brain that determine the acquisition and use of speech are sometimes affected. Pathologies are diagnosed early and become known before 2 years of age.
Neurological disorders. The formation of the central nervous system in general and the brain in particular is slowed down and disrupted under the influence of neurological problems, decreased tone, and hypotonicity.
Congenital (acquired) deafness, hearing impairment. Hearing-impaired and deaf children do not learn speech as easily as their completely healthy peers. Hearing impairment is caused by unfavorable heredity, problems during pregnancy, and infections in early life.
General speech underdevelopment. This refers to pathologies caused by objective external causes: smoking and alcohol consumption by the mother, infections, taking antibiotics during pregnancy, intoxication.
Mental retardation and mental retardation are both included in the group of intellectual disabilities, but their nature is fundamentally different. Mental retardation is caused by physiological reasons and is most often congenital. ZPR is formed against the background of negative psychological factors and is acquired in nature. Mental retardation can be easily overcome with the participation of a specialist; mental retardation can only be partially compensated.
Autism. The usual detachment characteristic of some children is confused with autism. True autism manifests itself in a lack of interest in the environment, other people and children, isolation, and indifference to communication. Since autistic children do not make contact, speech acquisition does not occur.
Lack of attention from adults, neglect. In order for a child to speak, it is necessary to communicate with him, play, talk, and engage him in joint activities. Indifference of parents and other relatives is a common reason for a child’s reluctance and inability to speak.

The reasons, according to Komarovsky

The doctor also identifies several other reasons that inhibit the development of speech and prevent it from appearing on time. What is Komarovsky trying to convey to his parents?

Nervousness of mom and dad slows down the emergence of speech. By the age of two, a child does not have developed speaking skills, parents begin to get nervous, take the child to specialists, and work intensively with him. The effect is that the baby closes down more, is also nervous, and does not understand what they want from him. Particularly zealous parents begin to study as soon as the child is a year and a half old. The result is even worse.
Modern gadgets are another reason for slow speech development. It is not the advanced devices themselves that are to blame, but the attention of parents and children to them. Of course, the baby is interested in what is happening on the screen. But it would be better if he played with his parents. And the latter do not have time, or they themselves are more passionate about smartphones and tablets. Gadgets do not involve imagination, like playing with dolls or cars. With them you can’t come up with a story or voice actions on your own. This is where “braking” occurs.
Lack of time. Parents spend more time on themselves than on their child. Work, hobbies, computer, gyms, favorite TV series... The result is no communication in the family, the child has no one to learn speech from. But emotional intimacy, communication, and conversations are much more effective than taking medications.
A silent child can speak. A paradox that parents don’t know about and forget about. Without speaking, by the age of two, a baby responds adequately to adults’ requests: he shows named objects, points to relatives whose name is pronounced. But the child has no need to speak on his own. This means that her parents did not create her. Then what to do?

What to do

Medical examination

At the first stage, it is desirable to exclude anatomical and physiological causes of silence. Visit doctors: otolaryngologist, neurologist, speech therapist, child psychologist. The ENT specialist will check the baby’s hearing, make sure his ability to distinguish and identify sounds, and determine their source.

A neurologist will confirm the absence of developmental abnormalities. You need to be prepared for the doctor to ask about the previous months of life: at what age did the child begin to hum, when did he stand on his feet, what self-care skills does he have.

The speech therapist will check the child for common pathologies in the development of the speech apparatus: low tone of the tongue and facial muscles, short frenulum. The psychologist will determine whether the baby’s current development corresponds to the norm and whether there are any suspicions of mental retardation.

Communication instead of gadgets

It is impossible to completely protect a child from contact with TV, tablets, and smartphones. But it is possible and necessary to reduce the time he spends near gadgets. Meaningless pastime must be replaced by live communication, emotional intimacy, joint games, walks.

Constantly talking through actions

You should talk to your child, even if there is nothing to talk about. Let this be the voicing of actions performed during cleaning, cooking, feeding, dressing, walking in the yard. By pronouncing actions, you will quickly form an idea of the relationships between objects, the structure of sentences, the correct word order, stress, and declension.

Encouragement instead of nerves and swearing

You cannot force a child to speak, even if he has acquired an impressive vocabulary. The child will speak when he wants. Swearing, demands, ostentatious insults will not help here. On the contrary, if mom or dad react negatively to the child’s silence, he will shut down, move away and not say a word for a long time.

The methods of encouragement are simple and varied: smile in response to the baby’s attempts to pronounce syllables and whole words, praise verbally, fulfill the voiced request immediately, putting off “incredibly important” things. Encourages are useful when trying to communicate with parents, and with other people around, relatives, and peers. Stress, regardless of its origin, slows down speech development.

Fairy tales, sayings, nursery rhymes

When reading fairy tales to a child, describe the pictures to him. Or ask questions: “Who is this?”, “What is he doing?”, “What color?” Learning rhymes and nursery rhymes are games accompanied by reciting memorized phrases and simple movements. “Ladushki” is the most famous example.

Visiting “public” places

It is useful for the child to be close to peers. It’s too early to go to kindergarten at 2 years old, but spending time on the playground and playing with other children is just right. Even if the surrounding children do not speak themselves, interaction with them can push the baby to use speech.

Light provocations

It has been repeated more than once: a child will not speak until he needs it. Parents who understand their child without words and instantly fulfill all his whims risk not hearing the first words from their pet for a long time. On the contrary, you should not react to the baby’s gestures alone, his crying, expressive “mooing”. It’s better to ask what he wants, ask clarifying questions, literally force him to speak out his desires.

The appearance of speech is individual, depending on hereditary factors, upbringing conditions, and the presence or absence of motivation in the child. Komarovsky calls on parents to remain calm, spend more time with the child, protect them from stress, and encourage the voice of needs. In rare complex cases, the help of doctors is required.

A two-year-old child still has a small vocabulary, then parents need to worry. Usually at this age the baby can already speak in sentences of 4-5 words, and he can also use pronouns, singular and plural, and also knows his name. A child’s vocabulary should contain about 300-400 words with which he can express his emotions and desires.

In order for a child to connect words with images, you, as a mother, talking with a child who is two years old, must look at the baby and observe his reactions. Also, the baby should see your face and see how his mother reacts to his words, so the baby will be able to study facial expressions and emotions.

When talking to your toddler about certain objects, you must show him pictures of these objects. If we are talking about a cat, you can find a photo of a cat in a book, show your child a cat on the street, or a video on a tablet. This way, the baby will better remember the words and associate them with objects from the real world.

Talk to him constantly

Any speech therapist will tell you that it is very useful if mom and dad constantly talk with a child who is two years old. Talk to your child while walking, while playing board games and doing household chores. This will help your child choose the right words in a given situation and quickly speak in whole sentences.

In addition, as any speech therapist recommends, such activities will look like a simple game, they are not complicated and the baby does not need to be forced to do anything, he will be drawn into communication himself and will beautifully and correctly repeat the words after his mother. Such lessons will be of exceptional benefit to the baby, and mom and dad will be able to easily and effortlessly teach the baby to talk.

But such classes and exercises in speech must be built according to certain rules. Mom and dad should not distort words in front of the baby, any speech therapist will tell you this. Children remember everything very quickly and firmly, and it can be very difficult to relearn how to say this or that word correctly.

As every speech therapist recommends, mom and dad should read fairy tales to the child. It is best if these are books with pictures that will stimulate the baby’s imagination, and reading will allow him to expand his vocabulary completely unnoticed by the baby, who is already two years old.

Try not just to tell your baby something, but to involve him in a full-fledged dialogue. The baby may not always answer you correctly, but any speech therapist will recommend such training as the best lessons for any child over two years old. The baby will be able to develop his speech, speak coherently and clearly, this will definitely benefit him.

Ask your child questions

If dad and mom ask the baby questions, then at first he will try to answer using gestures and emotions. Try not to follow your baby’s lead and ask him questions, demanding verbal answers. Of course, the baby, who has entered his third year, will not like it at first.

Perhaps the baby will cry and try to achieve what he needs with the help of gestures. Stand your ground clearly and demand an answer from the child, even if it is not said very correctly. Such lessons will very quickly turn from a duty into a game, and the baby will answer you more willingly.

Any experienced speech therapist will give the following advice to parents whose child, who has entered his third year, does not speak:

Develop your baby's fine motor skills. Play finger games, use educational toys and improvised materials, such as buttons, jars, lids, scraps and other similar things.
The mother and father of the baby, who is now in his third year, must agree and not allow the child to use only gestures in dialogue. It’s better to teach your child simple words together, such as give, na, thank you.
Let your two-year-old child communicate with other older children. By talking with children who speak well, the child will learn; such inconspicuous exercises will only benefit the child.
Mom can use a trick and “forget” the end of the phrase. Your child can finish it correctly for you, and thus your lessons can continue unnoticed by the child.
If a baby who has reached his third year asks a question, you must listen to him very carefully. This attitude greatly stimulates the child’s interest in keeping classes regular and interesting.

Learning to pronounce sounds

The mother of a baby who has entered his third year must definitely encourage the baby to learn to pronounce certain sounds. As any speech therapist will recommend, you should start these lessons with vowel pronunciation. It is desirable that the baby is interested in constantly repeating new sounds and sound combinations. Let the baby repeat them as much as he wants.

When the baby has mastered vowel sounds well, it will be possible to move on to consonants. Start with simple ones, such as b, c, d, and gradually move on to more complex ones. Dr. Komarovsky recommends teaching such lessons in the form of a game so that the child does not get bored. It would be a good idea to watch short educational videos with your baby in which characters pronounce sounds.

Letter P

Many mothers wonder how to teach how to teach a child to say the letter r. A speech therapist may recommend the following methods:

Learn a few rhymes with the letter r with your child.
Grow playfully, trying to show the baby the correct position of the lips and tongue.
Do special exercises prescribed by the speech therapist. Usually such exercises can be found in videos.

Letter L

In order for your baby to pronounce the letter L correctly, you must do the following exercise, as recommended by Dr. Komarovsky. Ask your baby to smile widely and run his tongue along the inner surface of the teeth in the lower jaw. First, you can find a training video and watch it to explain it to your child.

To do this, you need to stick your relaxed tongue out of your mouth and swing it up and down, trying to pronounce the letter R.

Letter Z

Teaching a toddler to say the letter Z is very simple. Ask your child to say S, but in a raised voice. Reinforce this exercise with the words tooth, hare, star, umbrella. Show your baby how the throat muscles tense when a ringing sound is made, bring his hand to your throat.

When and what to do if the child does not speak? – Doctor Komarovsky

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).

Normal development of children's speech at one and a half years

By the beginning of the second half of the year, children can have from 30 to 50 words in their vocabulary. They use them both of their own free will and as answers to questions from others.

The passive vocabulary by this time has a much larger number of words and concepts. In the next six months, that is, from one and a half to two years, the child gradually transfers words from a passive vocabulary to an active one. This process is growing like an avalanche. Experts call it a “lexical explosion.”

Almost every day children learn new and new words. At the age of one and a half years, many children who have developed speech in accordance with age standards, combine two words into one sentence. “Give me a doll” (give me a doll, a cube), “Papa is not there” (dad is not at home), “Give me Baba” - here are a few similar sentences from root words. Sometimes children as young as one and a half years use only one-syllable sentences: “Boom,” “Yum-yum,” “Beep.”

If the child’s speech development does not correspond to the average statistical norm (at 1.5 years the baby does not say not only 1-2 word sentences, but also does not say the required number of words, or does not say anything at all), then parents should start stimulating the child’s speech.

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 not given enough 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.

How to see a 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.

How can you stimulate speech at 1.5 years old?

If parents are attentive to their child and devote enough time to him every day, a slight lag can be corrected on their own.

Tips for parents:

call the baby by name more often;
show and name household items (furniture, dishes, toys, shoes, clothes);
show and name body parts of yourself, your child, dolls, and pets;
create situations where the baby will be forced to use speech and do not rush to finish the conversation for him;
show new objects, toys, accompanying them with comments (what color, shape, size, surface they are, what material they are made of);
watch cartoons with your children and explain everything that happens on the screen, ask who they see, what the hero is doing;
do not leave the TV on for a long time in the room where the baby is - a constant background sound does not give him the opportunity to listen to the speech of others, it will become uninteresting for them and lose significance;
explain in words all your actions and objects that you use;
ask your child questions and answer them yourself, this technique will displace simplified words from children’s speech; give examples of correct speech.

More often look at pictures with children that depict children, animals, familiar objects, offer to show a bunny, a bear, a car, etc. Reading poems, nursery rhymes, jokes, and fairy tales with a simple plot perfectly promotes the speech development of children from one and a half to two years old.

The video below shows finger exercises that stimulate speech development.

It is important to remember that the vast majority of causes of speech delays are due to the fact that parents do not deal with their children enough, or do not deal with them at all, leaving the situation to the grandmothers. In this case, you have to wait a long time until the baby says his first word. When working on time, children speak no worse, and often better, than their peers.

Some parents dream that their child will be silent for at least five minutes, but the restless one always comments on something. And some mothers and fathers dream of their child saying at least something. But the child stubbornly remains silent.

At 1 year old, as a rule, they just begin to worry about the child’s silence; at 2 years old, they are ready to run with the silent child to doctors and psychologists. If a child does not speak at the age of 3, this is a cause for serious concern.

Famous pediatrician Evgeniy Komarovsky helps parents understand the timing of the development of children's speech.

Speech development

If a child does not develop speech, he will not speak. The timing of the beginning of meaningful speaking is a rather individual concept. Some children go from syllables to trying to pronounce words before they are one year old, while others are only trying to do so by age 2.

There are average statistical deadlines, if there is a significant lag behind which one can suspect a delay in speech development in a child:

At 3 months, babies begin to walk;
At 6-8 months they can babble;
Girls usually speak their first word by 10 months. Boys do this closer to 12 months.
At 1.5 years old, a child is quite capable of pronouncing about a dozen words.
By the age of 2, he usually knows pronouns, and the number of words in his vocabulary normally increases rapidly.
By the age of 3, a healthy, developed baby can pronounce about 350 words without problems, operate with them freely, incline, and express his emotions.
At 4 years old, the baby’s vocabulary is already more than one and a half thousand words;
At the age of five, the vocabulary doubles; the child knows and pronounces more than 3,000 words.

The ability to speak without the ability to listen cannot exist, and therefore in order to develop speech data with a child and with him, you need to talk a lot.

Experts advise starting from the prenatal period - a conversation between the mother and the unborn child benefits both. In the later stages of pregnancy, the fetus already perfectly perceives sound vibrations.

After birth, communication with the baby should be continuous. He may not understand a word of what you say, but he must listen to human speech a lot and often.

For babies up to six months old, it is very important to observe the articulatory apparatus of mom and dad; by this age, he begins to grasp the connection between sound and lip movement. The baby himself tries to imitate what he hears. First it's humming, and then babbling.

With due patience from parents and regular lessons based on the repetition of new words, on the connection of words with images, children master speech with pleasure, their vocabulary increases almost daily.

Even if the baby is in no hurry to speak independently, with proper development he should have developed passive speech by the age of 2. Such a toddler can be asked to perform two consecutive actions - take an object and give it to one of the family members.

By the age of three, even children who speak poorly should be able to construct a chain of three consecutive actions based on their understanding of passive speech.

However, this is a theory. In practice, everything is not so rosy, and sometimes parents begin to worry and ask the doctor about the causes of delayed speech development.

Speech delay

If a child of 1-2 years old does not speak, it is too early to worry, says Evgeny Komarovsky.

The age at which you need to take your lack of speech seriously is 3 years. At the same time, parents must clearly formulate for themselves and for their doctor exactly how the baby is silent: he does not understand adults or does not speak, but understands everything.

Often the baby speaks, but adults do not understand him, because he mumbles something incomprehensible, does not memorize the names of objects, calling them in his own way in his own language, inaccessible to adults.

You can find the answer to what to do if a child does not speak in the following video from Dr. Komarovsky.

Sometimes three-year-old children speak, but are limited only to individual words, which cannot be tied into sentences or even phrases.

After mom and dad describe the essence of the problem as fully as possible, you can begin to look for the reasons for the tiny silence.

Doctors consider delayed speech development to be a condition in which there is no coherent speech at the age of three. Moreover, the presence of phrasal speech at this age is also considered a deviation from the norm, but not as significant.

According to medical statistics, speech retardation is recorded in 7-10% of children aged 3 years, and boys are much more likely to be silent than girls - for every one non-speaking girl there are 4 silent boys.

Reasons for silence

The most basic and most common reason that prevents a three-year-old child from speaking is hearing problems. They can be either congenital or acquired.

Hearing may be reduced slightly or significantly, up to deafness. The baby should be shown to an otolaryngologist. He will conduct a visual examination of the hearing organs and check the baby’s ability to perceive sounds.

If necessary, a pure-tone audiometry procedure will be prescribed, which shows with great accuracy how good your hearing is.

If no hearing problems are detected, parents will have to visit a pediatric neurologist. In some neurological disorders, the speech center is affected, so the doctor will have to find out if the baby has such pathologies. You will probably have to do an MRI to rule out the possibility of tumors or defects in the structure of the brain.

Komarovsky claims that abnormalities and diseases of the brain are very rarely the cause of speech delay, but this possibility cannot be completely excluded.

Congenital muteness is an extremely rare phenomenon with normal hearing; it is based on lesions of the speech apparatus.

If the baby is examined by specialists, and all of them unanimously claim that the child is completely healthy, the silence may have pedagogical and psychological reasons.

Sometimes a baby may refuse to speak after experiencing severe stress, fear, or severe fright. Much more often, the reason for silence lies in the incorrect educational approach of mom and dad: if parents communicate more in the evenings with virtual friends on the Internet than with their child, who is hanging around nearby, then the child simply has no place to acquire sufficient verbal communication skills. In these questions, you can contact a child psychologist or psychiatrist.

Often there are problems with speaking at the age of three in bilingual children, whose families speak two languages at once.

Sometimes the reason for lack of speech may be mental illness, usually of a congenital nature (autism, etc.). In 10% of cases of delayed speech development at 3 years of age, the true cause cannot be determined.

If a 3-year-old child speaks individual syllables, but does not know how to put them together into words, or speaks individual words, but cannot put them together into phrases and sentences, Evgeniy Komarovsky advises visiting neurologist and speech therapist.

And if the baby understands everything, but responds with completely incomprehensible sets of sounds while maintaining the intonations characteristic of normal speech, he requires mandatory consultation with a speech therapist.

Dangerous age

There are several age periods when speech formation is most intense, and any negative factors can affect the speed of these processes (both speed up and slow down):

6 months. If at this age a child has little communication, then he does not develop the need to speak, imitate sounds, or babble.
1-2 years. At this age, the cortical speech zones are actively developing. Severe stress, frequent illnesses, lack of communication, and injuries can lead to a slowdown in cortical metamorphosis.
3 years. At this age, coherent speech is formed. Exogenous factors can slow down this process.
6-7 years. When exposed to negative factors at this age, the child is unlikely to become completely silent, but disturbances in speech functions (stuttering) are quite possible.

How to teach to speak

If the cause of delayed speech development is organic (hearing diseases, neurological abnormalities, pathologies of the speech apparatus or speech center of the brain), then Komarovsky advises starting with eliminating this cause.

The child should be prescribed adequate treatment depending on the diagnosis. In parallel with this, the doctor will definitely give recommendations on how to conduct classes for speech development.

If the reason for the child’s silence lies in social, pedagogical or psychological problems, factors that prevent the child from expressing his thoughts through speech should also be eliminated.

Dr. Komarovsky will talk about how to help a child learn to talk in the next video.

Evgeny Komarovsky argues that sometimes it is enough to send a three-year-old with an acute lack of communication in the family to kindergarten. In a children's group, many boys and girls learn to speak much faster than in the company of adults.

Parents who decide to develop the speech of a three-year-old child in the absence of diseases that caused silence, must independently prepare for a slow and labor-intensive process. A child psychologist or child psychotherapist can help them with this, if there is such a specialist in your city. The key to success lies 70% in the efforts and efforts of parents.

See your child as a separate person, as significant and important as every adult in your family. Talk to him, discuss important issues and daily, everyday ones (what to cook for dinner, where to go for a walk on the weekend, etc.). Even if the child does not answer anything at first, he will begin to form a useful habit - to communicate. In parallel with it, the development of inner speech and a better understanding of passive speech will begin.

Parental overprotection can cause a lack of motivation to speak. If a mother asks which apple the baby wants - green or red, and she herself answers for it (red, because it tastes better), then the child simply does not have the opportunity to find the words and answer.

If such situations are repeated regularly, then the baby gets into the habit of remaining silent. If this situation repeats yours, change your attitude towards your child and free him from excessive care.

Lisp and babble should not be encouraged. If the mother, following the baby, calls objects around him in his own language, uses quite a lot of diminutive suffixes (machine, porridge, daddy, son, etc.), then the child will not develop the correct speech function.

Words with such suffixes are much more difficult to pronounce. Talk to your baby like an adult. It will be pleasant and useful for him.

Play music for your child. Songs, onomatopoeic choruses, classical music - all this has a beneficial effect on the ability to perceive the world, sounds, and speech.

Any free minute can be an activity. Use every hour you spend with your child. On the way to the store or pharmacy, describe and discuss with him everything that happens on the street: a car is driving - it is red, it is big, a dog is walking - it is small, kind, beautiful.

While preparing food, the mother can show the child kitchen utensils and name them out loud (spoon, pan), as well as foods (apples, carrots, cabbage, nuts).

If there are several children in a family, then, as a rule, problems with speech development are observed in the youngest ones. Psychologists believe that frequent communication with other children has this effect, since communication with adults is still considered optimal for speech development.

Younger children from large families are often simply too lazy to speak properly and to the required extent.

Ask your child questions often. Even if he can't answer them, don't stop asking. Sooner or later, the son or daughter will definitely respond.

Dr. Komarovsky emphasizes that if a child does not speak more or less coherently at 3 years old, this is a clear reason to see a doctor.
When assessing the speech abilities of their child, parents should take into account not only how much and what he says at the moment, but also monitor the dynamics of speech: if the baby speaks a certain number of words at both 2 and 3 years old, and his vocabulary practically does not increase, Komarovsky calls this a dangerous trend.
If at three years old a child lags behind the standards and knows only a dozen or two words, after a couple of months the vocabulary increases by another dozen new words, this is normal. Although the baby is lagging behind in terms of standards, he is showing positive dynamics in his personal development.
A child with a speech delay should not be given gadgets for a long time.
Instead of playing computer games and watching cartoons for a long time, take a walk together, play with your child, or read a book to him.
There is no need to compare your child with other children. Yours is a unique personality, there is no other like him, so any comparisons are inappropriate.

Forecast

If parents put all their efforts into starting to develop the speech functions of a three-year-old child, involve specialists in this, and if necessary, the child receives treatment, then the prognosis is quite favorable. 85-90% of children completely “catch up” with their peers by the age of 6-7 years.