From: Lisa S. Lewis <lisas@pucc.princeton.edu>
Subject: Re: slow talker
Originator: news@nimaster
Organization: Princeton  University
X-Useragent: Nuntius v1.1
     <1992Dec16.214249.24028@Princeton.EDU>
Date: Thu, 17 Dec 1992 16:07:48 GMT

>Path:
princeton!att!linac!pacific.mps.ohio-state.edu!zaphod.mps.ohio-state.edu!r
>pi!crdgw1!rdsunx.crd.ge.com!acadia!saulnier
>From: saulnier@acadia.crd.ge.com (Emilie T. Saulnier)
>Newsgroups: misc.kids
>Subject: slow talker
>Message-ID: <1992Dec15.164742.6292@crd.ge.com>
>Date: 15 Dec 92 16:47:42 GMT

>I have a nephew who is 3+ years old who still has not really learned
>to talk. He seems to have problems forming sounds and in fact can only
>approximate a couple of one syllable words. In fact he mainly
>>Any comments/experiences/suggestions? They live in the Boston/Rhode
>Island area so any suggestions on specialists in that area would also
>be most welcome.


I have posted the following list to Misc.kids before.  I will save it
this time as it seems that I need to repost it periodically.  I think
it's helped a lot of people determine that maybe their pediatrician
doesn't know *everything*.

Please note: I use "he" because it's easier than typing "he or she" and
because the vast majority of children with developmental delays and
disabilities are boys.


*RECOGNIZING SPEECH AND LANGUAGE PROBLEMS EARLY*

If a child exhibits any of the following fifteen problems, you should
consider having his language development evaluated.

1. Child isn't talking by the age of two years.
2. Speech is largely unintelligible after the age of three.
3. He is leaving off many beginning consonants after age three.
4. He is still not using two to three word sentences by age three.
5. Sounds are more than a year late in appearing according to their
developmental
    sequence (see ref. below.)
6. He uses mostly vowel sounds in his speech.
7. His word endings are consistently missing after the age of five.
8. His sentence structure is noticeably faulty at the age of five.
9. He is embarassed and disturbed by his speech.
10. He is noticeably nonfluent after the age of six.
11. he is making speech errors other than /wh/ after the age of seven.
12. His voice is a monotone, too loud, too soft or of a poor quality.
13. He sounds as if he were talking through his nose or as if he has a
cold.
14. His voice quality is too high or too low for his age and sex.
15. His speech has abnormal rhythm, rate and inflection after age five.

Reprinted from _Teach Your Child To Talk_ by David Pushaw, published by
CEBCO Standard Publishing, 104 5th Avenue, New York, NY.

If a regular book on sequence of sound production can't be found in a
regular book on childhood development, try your library for:
Powers, Margaret Hall, "Functional Disorders of
Articulation/Symptomotology and Etiology," In _Handbook of Speech
Pathology and Audiology_, Edited by Lee Edward Travis.


Something that I neglected to discuss in my earlier post on this subject,
is that even if a child is fine, if he/she cannot produce language by age
two or three, they will have increasing difficulties making friends and
relating to peers in general.  While an adult will "stay with" a child
who is difficult to understand, or who doesn't respond immediately,
another child will just walk away.  This is so hurtful to a child who
WANTS to relate but cannot.

Newsgroups: misc.kids