Malaysia Psychology Centre

Being expressive can be very touching, most of us use verbal communication to express our feelings, thought to others. Language development can start from early childhood, even starting from the first year.

It is important for you to be concerned about the language development of your children. Knowing what’s “normal” and what’s not in language development can help you figure out if your child is right on schedule. Here’s some developmental norms may provide clues:

Before 12 months

Toddlers within one year old babbles rhythmically, copy some of the sounds and gestures of caregiver make; they play with making different sounds – for example, ‘aaieee’, ‘booo’, ‘ahh’ at varying pitches and volumes.

From 1 to 2 years

Children at this age begin to imitate and approximate sounds and words modeled by family members, and typically say two words sentences spontaneously. Most toddlers are saying about 20 words by 18 months and 50 or more words by the time they turn 2. By age 2, kids are starting to combine nouns and verbs simple sentences, such as “baby crying” or “Daddy smile”.

From 3 to 4 years

Kids at this age can make sentences length four to five words, they have about 1000 words vocabulary. They can tell what they did on that day, they know last name, name of street, even recall several nursery rhymes.

From 4 to 5 years

They have 1500 words vocabulary, they ask many question like “why” and “who”. As they grow their vocabularies are gaining, they are beginning to master basic sentences structure. They also can identify colors, shapes, and comprehend descriptive concepts (big versus little, for example).

Each child’s language development grows with different pace. At the age of two, about one in five children shows signs of having a language delay. Some of these children will catch up as they get older and some do not.

Your child might have language delay if you see some of the following signs in your children:

By 3 years old:

• Seldom have eye contact
• Not trying to communicate with you, particularly when they need help
• Unable to say about 50 different words
• has difficulty understanding simple verbal requests

Between 3 to 5 years old:

• Does not understand prepositions or action words
• Does not use at least 200 words
• Does not ask for things by name

Language delay involves impaired comprehension or use of a spoken, written, or other symbol systems.  The disorder may involve: the form of language (phonology, morphology, and syntax), the content of language (semantics) or the function of language in communication (pragmatics). There can be a number of causes of language disorder. The most consistently reported risk factors include a family history of speech and language delay, male sex, premature birth, and low birth weight. It most often co-occur with Autism Spectrum Disorder which is linked with heavy metal toxicity, leaky gut or gut dysbiosis and a signature of genetic mutations.

Assessment

A psychologist will be able to conduct the psychological test such as Phonological Test, Dyslexia Test, Pragmatic Language Test and Cognitive or IQ test to diagnose the specific language and other disorder.

Psychologists also trained in PsychoNutritional medicine and therapy such as Dr. Edward Chan, the principal consultant child psychologist at ChildPsych, Centre for Child Psychology of the International Psychology Centre who was accredited by the Amen clinics led by the world renowned psychiatrist Dr. Daniel Amen, can also conduct mental health lab tests including heavy metal toxicity hair analysis, leaky gut urine test, gut dysbiosis stool test and saliva gene tests after the confirmed language disorder diagnoses.

Intervention

Please seek evaluation if you suspect your child has language delay. According to the American Speech Language Hearing Association (ASHA), 200 studies have found that 70 percent preschool children show improvement after treatment. The treatment include:

• Individual speech therapy: A psychologist trained in speech therapy such as those at the Child Psychology Centre at the International Psychology Centre will interact with a child by playing and talking, using pictures, books, objects, or ongoing events to stimulate language development. This can help the child to build his vocabulary and improve his grammar.
• Psychotherapy: If your child has emotional difficulties as a result of language issues, you might want to consider psychotherapy.
• PsychoNutritional Therapy: If your child has heavy metal toxicity, leaky gut or gut dysbiosis their language delay symptoms will drastically improve once these causes have been treated especially if they get treated before the age of 7 according McCandless, psychiatrist and author of Children with starving Brains; a medical treatment guide to Autistic Spectrum Disorder.

Parents are an extremely important part of their child’s therapy program. There are ways you can help your child’s oral language skills at home:

• Communicate with your child as much as you can: During infancy, sing and play lots of music. Spend a lot of time to communicate with your child, talk about what you see when you’re driving in the car or at the supermarket.
• Read to your child. Make reading an interactive experience with discussing the book’s pictures, and let your child make up a new ending or act out the story with puppets. Later, let your child point to recognizable pictures and try to name them. Then move on to nursery rhymes, which have rhythmic appeal.
• Ensure that you do not have heavy metals toxicity before you conceive by doing a heavy metal toxicity hair test because toxic heavy metal can be passed directly to your fetus.

Whatever your child’s age, recognizing and treating problems early on is the best approach to help with speech and language delays. With proper therapy and time, your child will likely be better able to communicate with you and the rest of the world.

This article is contributed by Psychologists and PsychoNutritional Therapists at ChildPsych, Centre for Child Psychology of the International Psychology Centre.

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