Information
Editors
Speech and Language Development
Referral to a speech therapist at different ages
- First year of life
- Little vocalizing and babbling
- Poor contact with adults
- Suspicion of impaired hearing
- Orientation, sucking, and swallowing reflexes are poorly developed; difficulties in eating
- Short frenulum of the tongue Structural Anomalies in Children
- Children aged 1-2 years
- No words or attempted words or other attempts at expressing oneself (gestures)
- Suspicion of poor speech comprehension or does not obey commands (remember recurrent otitis media as a cause of impaired hearing)
- Poor alertness
- Difficult to make contact with the child
- Speech is scant or not clear after the second birthday.
- If a child who has grown in a bilingual family has a sparse vocabulary but otherwise develops normally and understands speech and requests normally, follow-up of speech development is still a sufficient measure.
- Children aged 3-4 years
- Speech is defective or not clear (phonemes or syllables change place, long words are shortened)
- Major grammatical errors
- Poor vocabulary, difficulty in finding words
- Little speech, no or only a few sentences
- Inadequate answers, "own language"
- Stammering continues or starts after the physiological stammering age (at about 3 years)
- Poor contact, the child does not stop to listen
- Difficulties in following short instructions.
- Children aged 5-6 years
- Pronunciation errors (r, s, l, k etc.) should be corrected before school age
- Non-fluent speech (stammering, slurred speech)
- Language or speech is scant or poorly developed in relation to age
- The overall speech is not clear, which may be due to problems with motor and/or phonological fluency or difficulties in the ability to comprehend spoken language.
- Children aged 7-15 years
- All the abovementioned problems if they have not been investigated before
- Particularly problems that significantly affect speech