What is a Late Talker?
“A ‘Late Talker’ is a toddler (typically between 18-30 months) who has limited spoken vocabulary for their age, while having a good understanding of language, typically developing play skills, motor skills, thinking skills, and social skills. The difficulty late talking children have is specifically with spoken or expressive language.”1
Although there is some variation in development among children, there are important language milestones that when not reached can be cause for concern. When it comes to talking, expressive communication milestones are:
- 12 months: 1 to 6 words
- 18 months: 10 to 50 words
- 24 months: 50 to 300 words
- 30 months: 200 to 450 words
- 36 months: 250 to 1,000 words2
I’ve Been Told to ‘Wait and See’
It is not uncommon for well meaning family members, and even health care professionals, to suggest a parent ‘wait and see.’ Although research demonstrates that many late talkers do catch up by school entry, 20 to 30% of late talkers do not catch up without support and continue to have significant difficulties with language development.1 It is not possible to determine which late talkers will catch up on their own and which need support.
If you dive deeper into the research, there is evidence that many of the late talkers who seem to ‘catch up’ on their own by school entry continue to have weaker language skills in areas such as vocabulary, grammar, reading, writing, and listening comprehension.3 “This means that even Late Talkers who appear to catch up are working at a slight disadvantage when it comes to developing later language and literacy skills.”4
What do SLTs Recommend?
As a Speech and Language Therapist (SLT) I recommend that if a parent is concerned for their child’s communication development, they speak with a paediatric SLT. You know your child best, and if there is something worrying you about your child’s development, it is worth looking into. There are many strategies your SLT can help you put in place to support your child’s communication development and we know that early intervention supports better long term outcomes.
“The first three years are a critical period in a child’s development. Babies’ brains form connections faster than at any other time in life. Supporting development early—when a child’s brain is most adaptable—can have a big impact on a child’s ability to learn new skills and overcome challenges.”5
What Can I Do Now to Support My Late Talker?
- Contact a paediatric Speech and Language Therapist to discuss your concerns.
- Request your child’s hearing be checked to make sure their late talking is not linked to a hearing problem such as glue ear.
- Make sure you are face-to-face when communicating with your child.
- Make a game out of practising imitation skills and include imitation of play, actions and sounds.
- Use short, simple phrases and repetitive language to talk about what you and your child are doing together and things in which your child is interested.
- Use natural gestures and encourage your child’s use of gestures when communicating.
For more ways to support late talkers, see South Lakes Speech & Language Therapy’s post, ‘Top Tips for Supporting Early Communicators’.
If you would like more information about children’s communication development or speech and language therapy with South Lakes Speech & Language Therapy, please get in touch. Follow us on Facebook for more speech, language and feeding tips and sign up for South Lakes Speech & Language Therapy’s newsletter if you would like new posts sent directly to your inbox.
- The Hanen Centre: How to Tell if Your Child is a Late Talker and What to Do about it ↩︎
- Nicolosi, Harryman, Kresheck (2006) Owens (1996) Rescorla (1989) ↩︎
- Hawa , V. V. & Spanoudis, G. (2014). Toddlers with delayed expressive language: An overview of the characteristics, risk factors and language outcomes. Researchers in Developmental Disabilities, 35, 400-407. ↩︎
- The Hanen Centre: Late Talkers… What We Know, and What We Don’t ↩︎
- Zero to Three ↩︎