What is language delay? Delayed language development is a condition in which a child’s ability to express himself or herself verbally or understand language is significantly behind the normal developmental level of children of the same age due to various reasons. If a child is found to have a speech delay, efforts should be made to find the cause. If a child has a significant delay in language development without a clear cause, it is called idiopathic language development disorder or developmental language delay. What causes delayed language development in babies? Delayed language development in children is mostly temporary and children will gradually acquire the ability to express themselves as they get older. There are also many children who have too little or inappropriate communication with their parents. As long as language training is reinforced in a timely manner, proper attention is paid to communicating with the child and adjusting the manner of communication, it can also facilitate the acquisition of language skills. However, there are individual children whose delayed language development may indicate more serious problems, such as hearing problems, learning disabilities, other developmental delays, or autism. Symptoms of language delay Idiopathic language development disorder is clinically divided into two types: expressive language disorder and perceptual language disorder. The former can understand language but cannot express it, while the latter is limited in both understanding and expressing language. The language deficit is revealed when the child begins to learn to speak. The child can produce some syllables, but cannot form words. The child cannot remember ordinary words, has a very poor vocabulary, and cannot use complete sentences to describe what he needs to say, so his speech is very rudimentary and difficult to understand. Children with idiopathic language disorders learn language slowly, often 2 to 3 times slower than normal children, and are significantly behind in language, for example, they cannot call their father or mother at the age of more than 1 year, and they cannot speak in complete sentences at the age of 4 years. Children with idiopathic language development disorder may have no obvious psycho-emotional abnormalities in the pre-school stage, still lively and happy, after school due to language communication difficulties, children often appear anxiety, depression, withdrawal, disobedience and other behavioral problems. Children in this group often have learning difficulties, mainly in reading, comprehension and arithmetic. Because these children have normal intrinsic language development, they can participate in games with creative play and can also draw. They have some interpersonal skills, such as expressing their needs with expressions and gestures. They can show attachment to their mother and play with children. When the child is tested for intelligence, the verbal part is poor but the operational part is normal, and there is a separation between verbal and operational IQ. What are the possibilities of delayed language development In general, delayed language development may manifest itself in one or more of the following situations: 1. Late start age of language development. While normal children begin to speak and call out “Dad and Mom” around the age of one, children with delayed language development may not begin to speak until they are two or three years old, and some may not even say a word until they are four or five years old. Some parents may think that their child is late in speaking. It is true that language learning requires good attention, and some active children have difficulty paying attention to one thing for a long time, so they “open up” relatively late. It is often said that if a child walks first, he or she will talk later; and if he or she learns to talk first, he or she will learn to walk later. However, if the child is still not talking at the age of two or three, it is best for parents to take the child to a specialized institution for some tests. 2. Language development is very slow. A normal child at the age of learning language can master a lot of vocabulary in a year, especially in the age group of 3 to 5 years old, the amount of vocabulary mastered is geometrically increasing. However, a child with delayed language development may only be able to master four or five words in a year, and it takes a great deal of effort. 3. The level of language development is lower than that of normal children, and various errors often occur. They do not speak or speak in an incomprehensible way; speak with only one sound, such as an initial or final sound; speak backwards and forwards, confused or omitted; have a small vocabulary, speak in a childish, unorganized and clueless way; often use baby talk or onomatopoeia such as “woof” instead of “dog “The speech is intermittent and incoherent, with only single words and no sentences; they do not start learning to speak from a certain point; their pronunciation is vague and difficult to understand; their speech is The child’s speech is ungrammatical, without modifiers such as auxiliaries, conjunctions, adjectives, and adverbs; has no concept of time, and cannot distinguish the meaning of yesterday, today, and tomorrow in a sentence, etc. Of course, a child’s delayed language development must be determined in the context of his or her biological age, and a detailed examination and evaluation must be conducted. For preschoolers, even if some of the above-mentioned language symptoms are present, parents should not blindly assume that the child has a delayed language development, but rather send the child to a specialized institution for an examination. Usually, delayed language development is accompanied by other problems such as cranial injury, mental retardation, hearing impairment or deafness, emotional disturbances and motor dysfunction of the respiratory organs and vocal organs, etc. Therefore, during the examination, it is important to try to determine the cause of the child’s delayed language development, because the cause varies and so do the language interventions. If a child does have a delayed language development, parents should try to eliminate or reduce the cause of the delay as much as possible with the guidance of a specialist. Although the measures for language intervention vary from cause to cause, some principles are the same. Regardless of the cause, parents should keep in mind that you are your child’s best teacher of speech. Because you have plenty of time to spend with the child, you can give imitative speech objects, and because you are the closest person to the child, you alone can give the child the confidence to fully overcome difficulties.