Lawmakers at both the federal and the state level have passed legislation strongly supporting early identification, assessment and intervention in communication and other developmental delays. These numbers suggest that the infant and toddler group is under-identified by a factor of 9. Florida has intensified its efforts to identify these young children. The Florida State University Department of Communication Disorders has introduced two instruments that PCP's can use to identify infants and toddlers in their practice with communication delays. It is filled out by the caregiver and quickly scored by a health professional.
Early detection can make learning to communicate easier.
The speech pathologist helps develop a communication system that allows the child to express his needs. Autism Spectrum Disorder Infants and toddlers who are high risk for persisting language disabilities secondary to autism spectrum disorders show delays across the communication spectrum. Specifically, they have diminished use of emotion, eye gaze, sounds, words, object use and understanding of spoken language. Expressive speech disorders in the young child are verbal apraxia and dysarthria of speech. Verbal apraxia is a motor programming disorder affecting the muscles used in speaking.