At children's routine checkups from infancy through preschool years, health care professionals can watch for language development delays. Within the normal range, IQ is moderately associated with future reading ability. But severe cognitive deficits are usually associated with very low, if any, reading achievement. It has been well documented that children with hearing impairments are at risk of future reading difficulties. Early language impairment.
Children acquire language at tremendously variable rates during the first four years of life.
Yet some children are clearly behind by age 2 or 3. This is an important signal. Delayed language development can be the first warning of a pervasive developmental disability, hearing impairment, or neurological problem. Any of these conditions puts a child at risk of future reading difficulties. Often an evaluation by a speech-language professional reveals that these children have early language impairment.