Delays in language are actually one of the most common types of delays. It affects about one in every five children, or in other words about 20% of kids will actually learn to speak a little bit later than kids their age. This can be very concerning to parents who have noticed that their kids seem to be a little bit behind. Sometimes it's temporary and can be just worked on from home and they overcome it. Other times specialists are necessary, like speech therapists. You did mention that your 18 month old little girl is having some issues. Here is the norm. There is a lot of variability in this but usually kids who are about 18 months old should say about 20 words and then they rapidly increase between 18 and 24 months. By about their second birthday most kids are saying about 50 words. Then they start to combine words to make little sentences. Naturally most kids start to say small little sentences after their second birthday like, "Daddy big," or those sorts of things. They should be able to follow simple commands like if you say, "Go over there and pick that up for Mommy please," they should be able to go over and pick it up after you've pointed to it and spoken to them about it. You wanted to know specifically things you can do from home to increase the likelihood that your daughter will be able to get past this and won't need therapists or other specialists to get involved. There are definitely things you can do from home to decrease the likelihood that she'll need to have specialists involved. You can just hopefully move past this on your own at home with her by working with her. Basically the more you talk to her the more she is going to learn and hopefully the more she'll respond. Just talk through your day with her. She is probably with you all the time and so no matter what you're doing, driving down the road, shopping at the grocery store, cooking dinner, or cleaning, bring her along with you and use words to describe what you're doing. Avoid using baby talk. Speak to her as if you were speaking to an older child or an adult. Sit down and read books to her. Point to things and say what they are. There are tons of picture books with just a single item on a page and so you can point to a ball and say, "Ball," and to grapes and say, "Grapes." She'll learn to associate those objects with the word that you're teaching her. Hopefully that will increase her vocabulary. If you're noticing that this isn't making a difference then talk to the pediatrician again about your concerns. If she ends up needing specialists involved then that's not a bad thing. They can give you more tools to help her overcome and to be able to catch up with peers that are her age. If you have any other questions for me though feel free to ask them on our Facebook page and recommend us to your friends and family too.

свернуть