Speech therapy is a specialized form of therapy that focuses on assessing, diagnosing, and treating communication and speech disorders. It is designed to help individuals, especially children, overcome difficulties in speech, language, and communication skills. When our child was 18 months old, the pediatrician noticed that my kiddo was behind in speech. Actually, there was no speech. Some rudimentary squeals and screeches, and lots of sign language but no real speaking going on at all. We started speech therapy early by most accounts, but even at age 2 there was only a list of 20 words or sounds in his repertoire.

Our pediatrician was also worried about him missing other milestones. Developmental milestones are the skills and abilities that children typically acquire as they grow and develop. These milestones include physical, cognitive, social, and emotional skills. Speech and language development are important aspects of a child’s overall development and are closely linked to other various developmental milestones.

Here are some examples of typical speech and language developmental milestones for children:

1. Babbling: Around 6 to 8 months, babies begin to produce repetitive syllables, such as “ba-ba” or “ma-ma.”
2. First words: By the age of 12 months, most children can say a few simple words like “mama,” “dada,” or “bye-bye.”
3. Vocabulary growth: Between 18 months and 2 years, children typically experience a rapid growth in their vocabulary and can start combining two words together, such as “more milk” or “big dog.”
4. Sentence formation: By around 3 years of age, children can construct basic sentences with three or more words and use more complex grammar.
5. Conversational skills: Around 4 to 5 years, children become more skilled at maintaining conversations, asking and answering questions, and expressing themselves more clearly.
6. Articulation and pronunciation: Children continue to refine their speech sounds and improve their articulation skills throughout their early childhood years.

We were typically a year to a year and a half behind all these milestones, and it wasn’t a huge issue because he used sign language a lot to communicate. The bigger issues started as he got to school and other kids noticed his speech impediment (a pronounced lisp), the inability to use pronouns correctly, and other general language and speech differences compared to his peers.  It’s important to note that these milestones can vary among individuals, and some children may achieve them earlier or later than others. It just so happened our child was significantly delayed in reaching speech and language milestones and showed signs of other speech disorders like difficulty understanding or expressing language, and a limited vocabulary. It has to be said that his speech and language are now on par with someone much, much older, he has trained himself to learn and understand better than his peers. He still laments the lisp.  If you recognize this in your child, it may be beneficial to consult a speech-language pathologist for evaluation and potential therapy. Speech therapy can provide targeted interventions to address specific speech and language difficulties and help children improve their communication skills. It may also be prudent to consider other reasons for language delays.