A parent writes to Dr. Dana Johnson, pediatrician of Meriter Health, that her “18-month old doesn’t seem to be talking as much or as clearly as other kids her age,” and she wonders should she be concerned? As a basic skill to people’s cognition and communication, language development in children is important. But some children, known as “late-talkers” and without any deficiency, speak late, which is called language delay. Language delay in children may cause a reading disorder and social problems in their future development. If the children’s first word or phrase does not come out normally, the parents should send them to do an early assessment. Because language delay hinders the children’s future development, strategies such as language therapy, creating communicative surroundings, and choosing the right media can be applied by parents, educators, and pediatricians to help the kids.

     Language is a very important ability for a human being. Without language, people struggle to express their ideas and understand each other’s opinions. As Sarah Grison and Michael S. Gazzaniga, authors of Psychology in Your Life, state, “Thanks to language, we can live in complex societies where our ability to communicate helps us learn the history, rules, and values of our culture. Language also helps us communicate across cultures and learn much more than other animals can” (134). When babies are born, along with their other abilities, language develops as they grow up. Grison and Gazzaniga conclude that “[b]y the end of their first year, infants around the world are usually saying their first words…By about 18 to 24 months, children’s vocabularies start to grow rapidly. They put words together and form basic sentences of roughly two words…By about age 6, children use language nearly as well as most adults. Their vocabulary will continue to grow throughout their lives” (135). Children’s language develops step by step and there’re evaluation standards at each step. 

However, some children do not speak within their first year or speak only a few words as they grow older. These kids should be considered late-talkers or language-delayed. Jin-Kyung Kim et al. of Catholic University of Daegu School of Medicine, confirm children in all countries can master “the basic of their language” by “4 years of age,” but “5%-8% of children experience speech language delay or disorders in preschool years…” (363) Late-talkers typically don’t have any physical deficiency such as hearing loss or autism, and their health assessments are normal. Some bilingual children are late-talkers too. Kerry Danahy, Ebert et al. define bilingual as “[c]hildren who must learn and use two languages, either simultaneously from birth or sequentially in early child-hood, can be classified as bilinguals” (980). 

Language delay may be caused by bilingual environments. Ebert et al. admit, “Language learning is proposed to influence attention in bilingual children, and attention is proposed to influence language learning in children with developmental language disorder, though the hypothesized influences are controversial in both literatures” (982). It is important to determine whether the native language, the second language, or both languages are delayed. Less involvement by the fathers may lead to children’s language delay too. Typically, people think mothers play an important role in children’s growing up, especially at their young ages. But new research by Tamesha Harewood from Michigan State University points out that fathers’ language significantly contributes to children’s “later expressive language development”, while mother’s language contributes to children’s “receptive language” (4). Harewood also reports that “whereas the current study showed that fathers’, but not mothers’, stress influenced their toddlers’ cognitive development” (12). Cognitive development is related to language development. With the developing of technology and internet, children grow up with media, even from their infant time. Dwi Herawati Ritonga and Sri Sofyan from Universitas Sumatera Utara, Medan, Indonesia point out that “high television exposure in first year of life is related to lack of attention in school especially with language and reading.” 

Delay in speaking influences children’s future development and leads to reading disorders and social difficulties. Kim et al. state that “[c]hildren with speech and language impairment persisting at age 5 years were at high risk for language, literacy, and educational difficulties throughout childhood and into adolescence,” and “some children, whose language delays at age 3 or 4 years had apparently resolved, show difficulties in reading” (363-364). Elisabeth Rose, from Department of Developmental Psychology, Otto-Friedrich-University, points out that “early language abilities have been found to predict the development of cooperative behavior, aggression, and emotional self-regulation over a 4-year period” (778). Language delay in children is a matter which should be paid attention to and strategies are needed to treat this situation which relate to parents, pediatricians, and educators. 

Pediatricians and educators should take an early diagnosis or assessment to determine if the children are language-delayed. Kim et al. comment that “early evaluation can help to identify children with language delay who will benefit from intervention and/or additional evaluation” (368). For bilingual children, Stanley Greenspan, the clinical professor of psychiatry, behavioral science, and pediatrics at the George Washington University Medical School, suggests if the child is more than six months delayed, “it’s essential to consult a speech pathologist” to have “speech and language therapy.” He also encourages parents and teachers to create communicative environments for the children, like play “whistling and blowing games”, “make practice fun,” and “parents do three or four 20- to 30-minute floor-time session a day.” Improving late-talkers’ speaking includes not letting children aged “two years up to five years” watch some television shows, and if this is an avoidable action, however, the benefit of watching TV shows “depending on the quality of the program content, the compatibility of television program content with the age of the child, and the opportunity of interaction with the companion while watching” (Ritonga and Sofyani).

Parents should spend more time with their children, like playing games with them, telling stories to them, or taking them out for a walk. As Harewood states, “More specifically, it is the quality of parent-child interactions that influences both language and cognitive development” (3). Parents let the children attend a special education program or send them to preschools with special language educations. Educators will offer professional help. As Greenspan suggests, “teachers pair up the language-delayed child with another child doing something that involves a lot of back-and-forth talking, Teachers and aides should be conversing with the child, again with a lot of two-way interaction.” He also acknowledges that “the rhythm of interaction is critical for language development, so it’s very important for the child to have communicative and verbal peers. What we want is interaction, interaction, interaction!”

In conclusion: Though language-delayed development has a negative impact on a child, parents shouldn’t panic, because their panic will transfer to their children, who may become nervous and that will not help their speaking. Parents need to calm down and search for help. There are a lot of strategies and speaking programs to help children with issues speaking. As Dr. Johnson answered the parent that asked the question earlier, “[l]anguage delay occurs in one out of every five children and is the most common developmental delay.” Kim et al. also point out that “[s]ome children with language delay ‘catch up’ during the preschool years (late bloomer)” (367). 

Work Cited

Johnson, Dana, pediatrician, Meriter Health “Language Delay in Children is Common.” Wisconsin State Journal, Sep 25, 2013. ProQuest https://search-proquest-com.accarcproxy.mnpals.net/docview/1436477238?accountid=48834

Ebert, Kerry Danahy, et al, “Attention in Bilingual Children With Developmental Language Disorder.” Journal of speech, Language & Hearing Research, vol. 62, no. 4, pp979-992. EBSCO, doi: 10.1044/2018_JSLHR-L-18-0221

Greenspan, Stanley I. “Working with the Bilingual Child Who Has a Language Delay.” Early Childhood Today, vol. 20, no. 3, Nov/Dec2005, pp27-28. EBSCO. web.a.ebscohost.com.accarcproxy.mnpals.net.

Grison, Sarah, and Michael S. Gazzaniga. Psychology in Your Life. W. W. Norton & Company, 2016.

Harewood, Tamesha, et al. “More than Just the Breadwinner: The Effects of Fathers’ Parenting Stress on Children’s Language and Cognitive Development.” Infant & Child Development, vol. 26, no. 2, Mar/Apr2017. EBSCO, doi: 10.1002/icd.1984

Kim, Jin-Kyung, et al. “Developmental Profiles of Preschool Children with Delayed Language Development.” Korean Journal of Pediatrics, vol 57, no. 8, 2014, pp363-369. EBSCO, doi: 10.3345/kjp.2014.57.8.363

Ritonga, Dwi Herawati, and Sri Sofyani, “Language Development and Television Exposure in Chilren.” Pediatric Oncall Journal, vol. 15, no. 4, Oct/Dec2018, pp. 89-91. EBSCO, doi: 10.7199/ped.oncall.2018.39

Rose, Elisabeth, et al. “The Roles of Receptive and Productive Language in Children’s Socioemotional Development.” Social Development, vol. 27, no. 4, Nov 2018, pp. 777-792. EBSCO, doi: 10.1111/sode.12317.