Developmental milestones help parents to figure out if their child is where he or she should be in terms of a variety of areas, including motor skill, emotional, social, physical, and speech development. A missed milestone can sometimes mean nothing at all, other than that your child just wasn’t quite ready to hit the milestone. In other cases, missed milestones can be indicative of other problems.

One of the areas that parents especially are aware of is the area of speech. From the first gurgles, parents are waiting and listening to hear what their children are going to say. If a child, especially a toddler, isn’t speaking, parents can and should become increasingly concerned.

One important aspect of speech to understand is that there is a difference between a child being able to understand language (sometimes called “receptive speech”) and a child being able to use words to express himself (sometimes called “expressive language.”) A toddler who isn’t speaking might have difficulties with both receptive speech and with expressive language, or he may only have difficulty with expressive language.

Typical speech development moves along at a good pace. By the age of 15 months, an infant is putting together sounds and can probably say up to ten different words. By the age of 18 months, she is using nouns. By the age of 2 years, she is using simple, two-word sentences. By the age of three a child’s sentences grow to four words, and she can follow instructions and repeat words that she overhears. If your toddler isn’t speaking in this timeframe, it can indicate a problem.

A speech therapist can help to determine what exactly is going on if your toddler isn’t speaking. In some cases, a traumatic event might cause a toddler to not speak. In this case, for example, she should be treated by a child psychologist for post traumatic stress disorder. It may be that a child’s vocal cords or mouth or tongue have problems with development; if this is the case, another type of doctor is necessary, and surgery or other treatment may be necessary to correct the problem.

Posted in Baby and Toddler

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