Why a child doesn't speak - 6 psychological reasons

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Learning to speak can be uninteresting, unprofitable, or even dangerous. Let's understand the psychological causes of speech development disorders together with psychologist Victoria Melikhova.

If a child does not say his first words between one and a half and three years, this is worth paying attention to. The pediatrician will tell you if you need to take the child to a neurologist and psychiatrist to rule out organic causes. I propose to consider the psychological reasons that prevent a child from developing speech and communication.

When is a child ready to speak?

For the first year, mother and child are in symbiosis. The baby cannot speak; his only language is crying. The mother develops an amazing ability to understand his “language” and translate it into universal human language: now the baby wants to drink, then he wants to eat, and in the evening he wants to sleep. Mom can satisfy his needs. Thanks to this, the child survives the first year.

Gradually, the baby stops latching, begins to crawl, and takes his first steps. This is a very significant event for him. Now he feels separate from his mother. He can move closer or further from her as much as he wants, he can run, he can reach the treasured shelf with a bright toy. It is at this age that the first words appear. As soon as the child begins to feel separate from the mother, the need to talk appears.

On the other hand, by the end of the first year, the mother gradually comes out of fusion with the child and loses her superpower to read minds. Now the child, in order to express himself and his needs, needs to learn to speak his mother’s language.

Treatment of children with delayed speech development, how to treat children with speech disorders

Fortunately, Sarklinik has treated hundreds of children with delays in speech, psycho-speech, mental, motor, and psychomotor development. Treatment of alalia, treatment of dyslalia, treatment of general speech underdevelopment, treatment of dysgraphia, treatment of acalculia, treatment of encopresis, treatment of perinatal encephalopathy, treatment of tone disorders, treatment of akataphasia, treatment of akatagraphy, treatment of intracranial hypertension syndrome, treatment of dyslexia, treatment of autism, treatment of cerebral palsy, treatment are provided. enuresis, treatment of minimal cerebral dysfunction in Russia, in the Saratov region, in Saratov. Sarklinik knows how to teach a child to speak, how to treat and cure a child, how to treat delayed speech development in a child , how to treat delayed psycho-speech development in children, how to cure delayed neuropsychological development, how to give impetus to speech development, how to replenish vocabulary, how improve speech. Treatment methods have proven themselves over the years. Severe, moderate, and mild delays in psycho-speech development, and mental retardation are treated. Sarclinic works with serious diagnoses, when parents have less and less hope for recovery. Unfortunately, in such cases, as a rule, multiple courses of complex treatment are required, as a result of which memory, thinking, speech, mental development, motor sphere, and motor activity are improved. There is extensive experience in treating children with pediatric pathologies aged from 3 months to 17 years. There are plans to publish a video course “ How to teach a child to speak ?” On the medical website sarclinic.ru you can ask a doctor a question online for free and read patient reviews. Help your child right now!

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Text: ® SARCLINIC | Sarclinic.com \ Sarlinic.ru Photo: (©) Hyrman | Dreamstime.com \ Dreamstock.ru The child depicted in the photo is a model, does not suffer from the diseases described and/or all similarities are excluded.

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Advice from Dr. Komarovsky

Pediatrician Komarovsky notes that mothers should worry if the child does not speak at three years of age.
According to the doctor, RDD most often occurs due to the fact that parents have little communication with the child and do not conduct training sessions. Komarovsky recommends sending children to kindergarten. In a group, girls and boys learn to speak faster than at home in the company of adults. A well-known pediatrician also gives the following advice:

examine the baby to find out the reason for his silence;
perceive the child as a separate, significant person. It is necessary to discuss everyday issues with him (where to go for a walk, what to cook for lunch). Even if the baby does not answer anything, he will begin to form the habit of communicating and his passive vocabulary will be replenished;
encourage the child’s attempts to pronounce new words, sounds, and imitate adults;
visit playgrounds more often, invite peers to visit;
protect your baby from stress.

What should I do to help my child?

A competent speech therapist will definitely give advice and exercises that parents can do to help their child develop speech. As a rule, parents are recommended:

Actively communicate with your child. You need to talk to your baby from birth. Only constant communication can arouse interest in speech in a baby. Adults should speak clearly and distinctly, sing songs, and tell stories. Every action must be accompanied by words. As a result, a constant language environment will push the child to learn conversational skills more quickly and easily.
Pay attention to the quality of speech. It is extremely important that the speech of adults is clear and literate. The use of filler words should be avoided. You cannot distort words or lisp when communicating with your baby. The child’s perception and the clarity of his pronunciation depend on this.
Use educational toys. You should not use gadgets and games built into them. You can take cubes, pyramids, puzzles or mosaics. You should actively participate in the gameplay, describing what is happening in words. This will help shape not only speech, but also thinking, logic and memory.
Develop fine motor skills. Experts believe that the formation of fine motor skills directly affects the development of speech skills. You should constantly work with your child on modeling from plasticine, stringing beads, sorting out small toys, etc.
Visualize. Bright pictures with fairy-tale characters, animals, fruits and other objects motivate kids to describe them. Parents should show the child images and tell them what is drawn on them.

If necessary, in addition to classes, a speech therapist can also prescribe medications to stimulate the brain's speech zones, procedures, speech therapy massage, or alternative correction methods (hippotherapy, swimming with dolphins). It should be remembered that there are no universal approaches, because each child is individual, and only a specialist can take into account all his features during the development of the speech apparatus.

Publication date: 06/24/2019. Last modified: 01/13/2020.

Signs of speech delay

The reason for parental wariness should not only be the child’s mistakes in coordinating and changing words and in pronunciating sounds. At this age, speech is the main means of communication between children and loved ones. If the baby does not strive to turn to parents and other family members, if he expresses his requests with facial expressions or gestures, it is worth carefully assessing his speech capabilities.

Signals of trouble if a 3-year-old child speaks poorly:

it has a limited vocabulary, consisting mainly of nouns, less often verbs, onomatopoeia, and babbling words.
his conversations are like the speech of a foreigner whom few can understand.
When pronouncing sounds, a large number of substitutions and distortions of sounds are observed. For example, instead of the sound [k], the sound [t] speaks (cat - that), when he speaks, his tongue is between his teeth;
the baby speaks in phrases consisting of 1–2 words, is very reluctant to repeat words or sentences after adults, or does not do this at all.
cannot fulfill a simple request, does not respond to his name, does not know how old he is;

If the cause of a child’s speech delay is hearing problems, the baby may not respond to words addressed to him until he sees the speaker’s face. In case of auditory pathology, it is necessary to begin hearing correction as soon as possible in order to make up for lost time for the formation of children's speech. With properly organized training, the speech of such children after a year and a half is almost no different from the speech of their peers.

When a child is silent or speaks poorly at three years old, this may be a symptom of various disorders. First, you should contact an otolaryngologist and neurologist for examination, and get advice from a speech therapist, speech pathologist, or psychologist. If a child does not speak for 3 years, this is not laziness or lack of upbringing. He may have the following speech development problems:

motor or sensory alalia;
speech tempo delay;
general speech underdevelopment (GSD).

Each of these pathologies, despite the fact that it manifests itself with similar symptoms, requires a different corrective approach. A timely identified problem will allow you to select an individual lesson plan with a speech therapist, psychologist, or speech pathologist.

The reasons for underdevelopment of children's speech may be the following:

chromosomal pathologies, congenital diseases;
heredity, when in one family several generations have a late onset of speech;
pathologies of pregnancy and childbirth;
pedagogical neglect - happens not only in asocial families where they do not pay attention to children, but also where they love him madly and try to fulfill all his whims and desires;
diseases and injuries of the brain at an early age.

The most severe consequences are caused by brain damage during fetal development, during childbirth and in the first year of life.

What to do at home?

To successfully and promptly solve the problem of delayed speech development, it is not enough just to give medications prescribed by the doctor, take the baby to physiotherapy, classes with a speech therapist or speech pathologist.

Parents need to consolidate at home the skills acquired by the child during the treatment process. There are special training sessions that are conducted in a playful way.

It is necessary to take into account the age of the baby. Children 2-3 and 4-5 years old need to be dealt with differently. Your pediatrician can tell you what to do at home to stimulate speech development.

At 2-3 years

Parents whose children have developmental disabilities are interested in what to do if the child speaks poorly at 3 years old. At home, you need to help your baby develop speech. It is important to exclude those factors that have a negative impact.

Experts give the following advice:

Do not turn on the TV while the child is awake. Many parents mistakenly think that noise in the background improves speech development. But pediatricians say that children who constantly watch and listen to TV are more likely to experience developmental disorders;
teach your baby to communicate with gestures. This will help the child get rid of the unpleasant feeling of anxiety and confusion. There are studies that support the connection between speech and sign language;
put toys and objects of interest to the baby in places inaccessible to him. This will motivate the child to turn to their parents for help;
Play with your baby at least 40 minutes a day. At this time, you need to use simple expressions (“red ball”, “fast car”);
conduct training sessions with Doman cards;
Give your child water, milk, juice, or other liquid to drink through a straw. This will strengthen the muscles of the mouth and make it easier to reproduce words and phrases. It is advisable to use wavy, twisted straws.

At 4-5 years and older

After four years of age, the likelihood of development of mental retardation development into delayed psycho-speech development increases. This is due to the fact that the absence or poor speech inhibits the development of thinking. As statistics show, after 5 years the chances of completely eliminating deviations drop sharply.

In children over 6 years of age, the chance of cure is only 0.2%. Therefore, many parents whose children have developmental disabilities are faced with the question of what to do if a child speaks poorly at 4 years old.

Experts give the following recommendations:

conduct developmental classes.
Finger games are useful. It has been proven that the development of hand motor skills improves the functioning of the articulatory apparatus. It is useful for a child to assemble construction sets, puzzles, play with mosaics, sculpt from plasticine, string beads on a fishing line, and paint with finger paints. Outdoor games are also recommended. It is advisable that all actions are accompanied by words. Musical games are useful: guessing the voice of an animal, the names of tunes. This teaches you to concentrate and catch changes in the timbre of your voice. It is necessary to develop visual attention. For this purpose, it is recommended to play with colorful objects and geometric shapes;
perform a massage . Helps if mental retardation is caused by abnormalities in the psychophysical state.

It is important to remember that working with a child at home is not an alternative to treatment prescribed by a doctor.