Fussbucket

by Stacey

One in four late talking toddlers will continue to have language problems by age seven, according to new research out of Western Australia. This article in Science Daily says that the project, called LOOKING at Language, analyzed the speech development of 1766 children from infancy to age seven, with particular focus on environmental, neuro-developmental and genetic risk factors.

LOOKING at Language Chief Investigator Professor Mabel Rice said the findings were mixed news for parents worried about their child’s language development. “While a late start doesn’t necessarily predict on-going language problems, most school aged children with impaired language were late talkers,” Professor Rice said. “That’s why it’s essential that late talkers are professionally evaluated by a speech pathologist and have their hearing checked. We know that early intervention can greatly assist with a child’s language development.”

Time for some backstory. Today I took Sascha to have an evaluation by a physical therapist because he still isn’t walking. He’s just about 17 months and the boy is a scootching fool. Seriously, he looks like a monkey. He’s really fast and he can carry things in one hand while he does this convoluted maneuver with his legs and one hand. His doctor thought it might be prudent to get an evaluation and so I did. In addition, I wanted to talk to the PT about the fact that he only says a few words and even those, not so well.

So. After an hour of playing with the PT, during which he insisted he needed food and then proceeded to eat graham crackers as though we hadn’t fed him for a week, we learned that he is indeed delayed in his walking (no duh) and that his speech is mildly delayed too. Which brings me back to my interest in this new study.

Co-Chief Investigator Associate Professor Kate Taylor said the next challenge for researchers was to find ways to identify which children were likely to outgrow the problem so that interventions could be targeted at those in need. “Our study has previously shown that 13% of two year olds are late talkers and that boys are three times as likely to have a delay at that age,” Associate Professor Taylor said. “What we now can see from our data is that by seven years of age, 80% of late talkers have caught up, and that boys are at no greater risk than girls. However, one in five late talkers was below age expectations for language at school-age”

So of course I’m a little worried. The plan is to take him for physical therapy. And honestly, the PT was on the fence about whether or not he needed to go at all. She was able to determine that his core equilibrium is not as developed as it should be which is probably why he isn’t trying to stand without holding on to something. (He does walk while holding our hands and he pulls himself up to standing all the time.)

Thankfully, the article added that a mother’s education, income, parenting style or mental health had no impact on a child’s likelihood of being a late talker so I can cross “feel guilty” off my list of things to do this week.

The PT suggested we work on his language development with him by trying to get him to repeat words and to point to objects in books. The article says that by 24 months, children will usually have a vocabulary of around 50 words and have begun combining those words in two or three word sentences.