Possible Signs of Speech and Language Difficulty or Delay

CHILDREN June 2, 2016
A child may be experiencing a speech and language delay if: By 12 months- does not babble with using alternating tone – e.g. dadaDADADAdadada
- does not use gestures such as waving “bye bye” or shaking head for “no”,
- does not respond to her/his name
- does not communicate in some way when s/he needs help (i.e. cry etc.)
- does not understand and respond to words like “no” and “up”
- says no words
- does not point to objects or pictures when asked “Where’s the…?
- does not point to things of interest as if to say “Look at that!” and then look right at you
- does not understand simple commands like “Don’t touch”
- isn’t using at least 20 single words like “Mammy” or “up”
- does not respond with a word or gesture to a question such as “What’s that? or “Where’s your shoe?”
- can’t point to two or three major body parts such as head, nose, eyes, feet
- says fewer than 100 words
- isn’t consistently joining two words together like “Daddy go” or “ shoes on”
- does not imitate actions or words
- does not use pretend play, such as feeding doll or making toy man drive toy car
- says fewer than 300 words
- isn’t using verbs such as “run”, “eat”, “fall”
- isn’t using some adult grammar, such as “two babies” and “teddy sleeping”
- does not ask questions by 3 years
- isn’t using sentences (e.g., “I don’t want that” or “My truck is broken”) by three year