Late Talkers 

Every parent wants their child to be a good little talker. It’s one of those early milestones that is really obvious. And it’s actually really important for their overall development. Talking helps the thinking and listening skills to develop.

You may have noticed that your child doesn’t talk as well as other children their age, or are not getting started with their communication skills. This is a very real concern. Research supports early intervention, as the consequences include difficulties further down the track, including finding it harder to read and write, and other learning difficulties, as well as social interaction with peers.

There are lots of different components to learning to talk. There are sounds to learn to say, words to remember, and then they need to be put together in sentences with correct structure. We use words for things and for actions, describing words, joining words and all the other grammatical components.

And as well as talking, babies and children need to learn listening skills and how to remember what they’ve heard.

There are lots of different reasons for speech delay or poor speech sounds, and it is important to work out WHY your child isn’t talking well. Some of the more common reasons include:

• Poor auditory processing which is often related to hearing loss
• Dyspraxia or apraxia or Childhood Apraxia of Speech
• Autism Spectrum Disorder
• Developmental Delay

Babies and children who have ear infections, reflux or congestion, or tongue tie, appear to be at much higher risk of speech delay. Difficulties with food textures or latching on for breastfeeding are often associated with speech difficulties.

Lots of children learn to talk quite naturally by listening and then by practising. Our programs will show you how to make the absolute most of your child’s natural language skills. And it will help you prevent some of the problems with speech and language development that happen in lots of children.

If your child is a slow talker or has any speech or articulation difficulties we will help you to understand the issues and to make the most of your therapy sessions.

We can teach your child how to make sounds they find hard, to join words, to get grammatical components on the words and use all the little words that are important for sentences. We will show you how to help your child remember what they hear.

We will make sure they are using speech to get their message across and become good little communicators.