Should I really worry if my 2 or 3 year old is not talking?

Research* continues to validate how important it is to ensure your toddler aged 2 years to 3 years uses speech. Your toddler should be using speech to respond to simple questions (“What is this?”), to spontaneously name body parts, objects or animals he sees, or repeat words after you when asked (“Say ‘nose’…”).

Some adults may think that it is not a big deal when a child does not do all these. However, researchers point out that a child who is not doing all this or not being a ‘talkative toddler’ is missing out on at least 3 benefits:

1. He misses the chance for the ‘articulatory practice’, moving the necessary speech muscles physically, like a mini tongue and lips workout.
2. He misses the chance for auditory feedback’, hearing himself saying the words, reinforcing (subconsciously) how his muscle movements relate to different sounds he says, and reinforcing his vocabulary.
3. He misses the chance for ‘caregiver responses’ or further social and verbal interaction as other adults or children respond to his speech with more speech.

The researchers put it rather strongly: “Not responding could mean that a toddler’s opportunities for speech practice and feedback are foregone.”

It’s not just a child’s expressive speech that has implications for his development. Research also indicates that how well a child responds to speech (‘receptive language’), such as instructions or questions, significantly predicts both his receptive and expressive language outcome at ages 4-5 years.

In other words, a child who has poor receptive language skills and does not respond well to instructions or questions at age 2 or 3 is very likely to be poor in listening and speaking at 4-5 years.

This is the age where most pre-schools start to move on to literacy skills, introducing such reading and writing related skills such as letter names and phonics, so the child is likely to become at risk for reading difficulties as well.

So, make sure your child does not miss out on opportunities to develop his speech, language and social skills and become a late-talker or worse. Subscribe to our YouTube channels or visit our blog to stay in touch with tips you can use to improve your child’s speech.

Do you agree with the above? What difficulties do you encounter when you try to improve your child’s speech?

Please leave us a comment! Thank you very much.

*References:
Hodges, Baker, Munro & McGregor (2017). “Responses made by late talkers and typically developing toddlers during speech assessments”. International Journal of Speech Language Pathology, 2017; 19: 587-600.