Speech delay in children: from what age should we start worrying?


“Talking to the baby in a childlike way can interfere with the way he will start talking,” warns the pediatrician.

Recently, the entrepreneur and digital influencer Virginia Fonseca irritated by the publication of a pediatrician who said his daughter with the singer Ze Felipethe small Maria Alice1 year, had a delay in pronunciation.

“Things that pediatrics gives me: I keep an eye on Maria Alice, daughter of Virgínia and Zé Felipe, to see when she will develop language (which is also retarded). She should already be pronouncing at least three more words, plus surnames. But speaking well “, wrote the professional in twitter.

Virginia didn’t like the comment at all and shared it Instagram, but he deprived the name of the professional. “Don’t be that kind of professional, for God’s sake. Kind of a thing that I can just take my peace of. Have holy patience,” she wrote and influencer in the stories.

“Every child is a baby. Maria Alice goes to the pediatrician every month. She is super smart, cute, beautiful and does things at the right time, yes. And another detail: not everything is published,” added Virgínia, who is pregnant. with 8 months from second daughterMaria flower.

the outburst of Virginia Fonseca It catches the attention. Is it really the right time for a child to start speaking more clearly? Pediatrician Claudia Drumond explains that every child has their own timing and progression.

“The child’s communication with the world begins long before the speech begins. And each child has his own time and progression. We can say that language is divided into receptive and expressive. The first has to do with understanding and the second with the way of At birth, in the first months, non-verbal communication occurs when the child emits small sounds and calms down hearing, for example, the voice of parents and / or guardians “, he emphasizes.

“They stare or smile at the people who talk to them. But they also express themselves with grimaces and cry when something is wrong like pain, sleep, hunger or discomfort. From 3 months onwards they already make sounds as if they are talking, but in your way” , added the pediatrician.

Between six months and a year, the baby already begins to understand some words like hello, or I can’t, according to Claudia. “And from the first year on, this communication usually progresses a bit. The child starts stammering and forming words like mom, dad. This is the first step to start saying other simple words. Between the first and second year , the child already speaks more words and manages to make combinations between them, “he says.

According to the doctor, between two and three years old, the child already makes sentences with a few words, imitates the expressions of the closest adults and names some objects. “After this phase, he can already answer some simple questions like who, where or what. By the time he reaches 4 and 5 years old, he already understands most of the things that are said, he can communicate easily with both children and adults, he already uses more completing sentences, he can recognize letters and numbers “, he informs.

If there is a suspicion of speech delay, what to do? “The first step is to find a pediatrician and a speech therapist to carry out the necessary tests and diagnose whether or not there is something that needs to be investigated or treated,” says Claudia.

“There are some warning signs, such as when children do not react to sounds or according to age, based on some characteristics, such as not making sounds with their voice, not understanding verbal phrases or requests, not trying to imitate sounds and words, preferring to communicate with gestures instead of voice, not producing words spontaneously, repeating nonsense words, abnormal tone of voice or when the adult cannot understand what the child is trying to verbalize or share speech, is very important carry out a complete medical evaluation “, emphasizes the pediatrician.

Claudia also points out: “The speech therapist can do tests that can extensively analyze the language (both expressive and receptive) and the otolaryngologist can perform other tests, such as the hearing test, to find out if there is any hearing loss”.

Treatment

According to Claudia Drumond, treatment will depend on assessing and identifying the cause of the language delay. “Only after having discovered what the limitations are, an individualized treatment plan is drawn up. If, after carrying out the tests, it is discovered that there is any disorder or other medical condition, the treatments can also be carried out by a multidisciplinary team” , points out.

Finally, the pediatrician also warns: “Talking to the baby in a childlike way, as if he were a baby, can interfere with how he will start talking. As they grow up, they begin to interact with other people. They speak badly in this. way the child will understand and ‘learn’ that this is the right way to communicate with the world. “

success on the internet

When discussing this topic, the case of little Alice comes to mind, just 3 years old, when she became famous as a child on the web, after having repeated several difficult words, such as ophthalmologist, proparoxytone, crazy and on purpose. Diction and the ability to repeat them made Internet users fall in love with the girl.

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Source: Terra