Delayed speech in a child

There is a disparity between the abilities that children have in many aspects of their lives in childhood, such as the disparity in starting to speak. Delay is normal and does not need to be worried, and it results from the parents not talking continuously and extensively with the child, and in other cases the delay is for an abnormal reason and needs follow-up and treatment by the parents, so that they can solve the problem of delayed speech in their child, and make him able to speak naturally.


Delayed speech in a child has a number of reasons, which are:


Weakness in the mouth and palate can affect a child's ability to speak. A child's ability to speak can also be affected by the unusually small gap that holds the tongue in the lower mouth. These physical problems are often recognized by a pediatrician before they begin The child speaks, and in some cases these cases can be missed from a young age until the child’s exposure to the dentist begins.


Most children have difficulty speaking due to the presence of problems in the areas of the brain responsible for speech, which makes it difficult for the child to coordinate the lips, tongue and jaw to produce sounds, and it is possible for these children to suffer with other problems related to the mouth such as feeding difficulties, where this problem centers on Speech dyslexia occurs in children, and the child may have problems controlling the muscles and parts of the body that are used to speak, and these problems may exist on their own or alongside other movement difficulties such as eating problems.


A variety of intellectual disabilities can cause a child to delay speaking and talking, examples of these disabilities are dyslexia and other learning difficulties, and in some cases many psychological and social issues cause speech delays in children, for example, severe neglect can lead The child has problems with language development.


Hearing problems are usually associated with a child’s speech delay, so a hearing test must be taken by audiologists if there is any doubt about the child’s inability to speak. The child is unable to master and understand the specific words and thus prevents him from imitating the words and using the language fluently or correctly.


Ear infections, especially chronic infections, can affect a child's ability to hear, although minor injuries to the ear that have been treated should not affect speech, and as long as there is normal hearing in at least one ear, speech and language should develop normally.


Among the other reasons that are considered the most common in the delay of speech and pronunciation in a child:

• slow development.
• Mental retardation.
• Social deprivation where the child does not spend enough time talking to others.
• autism.
• Being a twin.
• Cerebral Palsy.

To solve the problem of delayed speech, several steps must be taken that lead to the treatment of this problem, namely:

• Do many things that draw the child’s attention to different sounds, such as the sound of the doorbell, and let the child try it more than once, and he can be drawn to his attention by bringing him toys that make different sounds such as the sound of animals and other sounds.
• Participation of the child when he is playing, and making some sounds from the mouth of the person who is playing the child.
• When talking with the child, some simple and easy syllables of speech should be inserted, such as saying "toot".
• Using some signs when talking to the child, such as making certain movements with the hand, and that is when warning him in case he makes any mistake with the first word, not with making a sign indicating that and it is by hand.
• Teaching the child his name and how to pronounce it, calling him regularly, and calling the people around him by their names.
• Keep talking to him when doing anything related to him.
• Teaching the child different colors through many means such as colored balls.
• Graduation with the child while teaching and instructing him how to construct and pronounce some simple sentences.