Causes and treatment of delayed speech in your infants

Paediatricians are trained to treat simple to complex disorders in a child. Among others, delayed speech for infants is an area of concern.

Delay in speech is seen among around 10 % of the pre-school going children. Surveys have shown that 20 % of children learn to speak later than others of the same age. They also feel frustrated when they are unable to express their feelings. Pediatricians all over the world treat delayed speech in infants in several ways.

Normal child speech

A normal child usually goes through these steps:-

  • Usually, a normal child responds with coos to the response of voice within 6 months.
  • Babbling within 9 months
  • Imitation of simple words without understanding within 11 months to a year.
  • The vocabulary of words then increases with age.

The speech delay usually raises an eyebrow when the child does not speak or creates gestures related to speaking between the ages of 9 to 36 months. Even when the child does something abnormal, with delayed speech, a Paediatricians intervention is suggested.

Causes of delayed speech

There may be many causes for delayed speech- both external and internal. Though controlling the external factors seem possible the internal ones are hard to detect and treat.

Delay in identification may be due to external factors like availability of infrastructure for testing, the severity of presenting symptoms, delay by parents, or treatment available.

There may be internal influencers such as

  • Problems with tongue
  • Challenges in the tongue touching the roof of the mouth thereby unable to generate sounds.
  • Learning disability to understand language or a certain sound
  • Hearing problems
  • Developmental disorders like autism, cerebral palsy, selective mutism, receptive aphasia, mental retardation, and a lot
  • Behavioral challenges like attention deficit, hyperactivity, low IQ levels, etc.
  • Environmental challenges like child abuse, neglect, etc.

THE PAEDIATRICS- wingless angels

Though the treatment cannot be generic as all challenges need to be weighed separately, There is a distinct guideline which the pediatrician chooses for each child and is initiated through some simple tests like the early language milestone test, the Woodcock reading mastery test, etc . that gives an idea of the cognitive strengths of the child.   Depending on the complexity of the case, the pediatrician needs to conduct a test of the central nervous system along with the body organs to diagnose the real cause of the delay and meticulously frame a line of treatment. The process of detection and finding out the real cause is quite time-consuming since children are usually inexpressive and unaware of the real problems. The best pediatricians are those who treat children with compassion and become friends with the child.

The pediatricians choose the best possible line of treatment through medicines, and a lot of behavioral stakeholders which may include parents, grandparents, school teachers, Paediatric ENT specialists, pediatric psychologists, pediatric neurologists, linguists, and lot more.

India is blessed to have some of the best pediatricians. With state-of-the-art infrastructure and renowned hospitals, we have some of the best child specialists in Gurgaon whose treatment is at-par with any of the best hospitals in the world. Days are not far when Gurgaon will be considered a heaven for wingless angels for all children across the globe.

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