Speech Development in Children

Male Speaker 1: A year of age you can expect your kid to say how many words? Male Speaker 2: Well, by a year of age, children should be having that first few words, when you say languages not only necessarily words. Male Speaker 1: Most often. Male Speaker 2: For example -- well not only that, for example, pointing is really you know, one of first language that we see that in children to know point for what they want even before they are able to say words. Male Speaker 1: So we put that expressive language of the children? Male Speaker 2: Sure, now these are quiet expressive language. And even babbling and cooing is, you know, the first starting of expressive language and as using the hands is easier than controlling all the muscles in the mouth that it takes it say certain sounds and words. You can see children using their hands and gesturing as expressive language even before using their words. Male Speaker 1: If a kid is 4 months of age, was they make an eye contact, isn’t a little bit of concern? Male Speaker 2: Sure, it’s definitely by 4 months baby should be at least with their mother, with the people they are used to, should be making eye contact and then it should be following specifically something that’s they are interested in. Male Speaker 1: About social smile, because there is no social smile, is that a little bit of concern? Male Speaker 2: Sure, that will be concerning. Male Speaker 1: What would that -- what would you expect the social smile to – it should be there in most babies. Male Speaker 2: It’s early on, I mean, they really start smile at one, two month of age, they’ll go -- they’ll start not responding to their mother and being consoled by their mother. Male Speaker 1: So that was – I think kid, say 15 to 18 months, and it’s really not expressively, if it like by pointing direction or with words that’s sort like another big red flag sometimes. Male Speaker 2: Yeah, that’s definitely a red flag and there’s all sorts of disorders that are associating with expressive language disorders by expressive mean what they are saying that is supposed to reset that whether understanding language and you know it varies. Male Speaker 1: Okay. But of course if you don’t think the kid was speaking, they are always -- especially kid had a hearing test. Male Speaker 2: It’s always the first thing to do. They -- with a newborn hear and scream at them when they first point but of course that’s not very accurate, that’s helpful but if your child is not speaking, the first thing you do is check the hearing, so that’s something that could be taken care of. Male Speaker 1: Okay, there are ways of joining at reasonably accurate as kids gets older Male Speaker 2: Sure. Male Speaker 1: But they should not just speak out to anybody, it should be someone specially trained in doing that with kids. Male Speaker 2: Yes, of course. Male Speaker 1: Some of they are placed in observation stil get today. Male Speaker 2: Right, I mean some parents will come and say, oh, of course, my child here is -- I can tell that they hear but that you know, hearing is very specific in its different frequencies that some babies can hear out in different frequencies that human language is functioning at in, and therefore all those frequencies need to be tested properly. Male Speaker 1: So if a kid doesn’t have a social smile or doesn’t speak, people are really worried about their children today, what’s called autism. Male Speaker 2: Right. Male Speaker 1: Now you don’t likely put that diagnose in a kid in a young age but you think about it a little bit if a kid, they doesn’t have a social smile or doesn’t speak but we don’t say the kid is -- just we have concerns. Male Speaker 2: Right, early on to make the diagnosis however if you started seeing that they don’t have language and they don’t have sociability and they are not interacting properly, it’s something that you definitely want to keep in the back of your minds that you can keep following the kid closely so that you can diagnosis as early as possible because the sooner you diagnose the problem the soon you can start treating a problem. Male Speaker 1: And there is trembling this language delay, which is not autism but kids do speak later. Male Speaker 2: Correct. Male Speaker 1: Okay and they are perfectly okay. Male Speaker 2: And a lot of that is hereditary and genetic. And sometime if you look into their families, the mother’s family, the father’s family, you can find that there are other growing this abilities or languages abilities as well. Male Speaker 1: Now if the kid is two years-old, no expressive language, virtually no eye contact to mother or father, which you have a greater concern, the kid can possibly have this, we are over hearing the news all the time, autism is that a possibility? Male Speaker 2: Sure, it is possible. When something at me, we look at his – all his social tracks and we will look at his, the way he plays, the way he interact with environment in general. Male Speaker 1: Would you a queue be very suspicious, when you hear this, you would look out and say, may be this kid is doing something; no this is it, what would be the last. Male Speaker 2: Sure, so other thing that children with autism will do is some of them have stereotypic, which are just repetitive movements such as hand flapping or some children would be spinning on themselves or banging, others like doing repetitive behavior such as switching lights, or just opening and closing doors, cabinets, spinning on themselves, and lot of them will prefer to be alone, not necessarily prefer to be with other children or interacting with other people. And they don’t play with their toys in the normal manner that children play with their toys, for example, that imagine that a play well children will take two cars and roll them in and crash them and make traffic jams and things like that, so then the autism may just wind them up or stack them or bang them on their head or something like that. Male Speaker 1: You know, some of these kids have all these things when they are five years-old, you don’t know why, some of them end up being okay, so is assured? Male Speaker 2: Yeah, I mean autism is a spectrum that’s you know, it’s called autistic spectrum disorder and one of the reasons for that is, there is a very wide spectrum as some children have some of these features and can do very well, while other have more of the features and have more difficulty with social interaction and with language. Actually one of the biggest predictors, how well they will do is relative to their social interactions, so that’s, you know, one of the most important things today.