Kids and language: Children have a huge variation in how they develop language skills. How do you know if your child’s speech patterns or breaks are a phase of development or something they may need extra help with? Let’s talk about what’s in the bell curve and when to seek more support.
It can feel alarming when your child stutters, lisps, or has other speech issues like dropping words or syllables. It’s helpful to know that these speech patterns are very common and often a natural part of developing language. For most children they are temporary.
Childhood speech is different from adults: You’ve probably tried to follow along through nonsense baby babbles or when your 5-year-old retells the entire plot of a movie in one very long breath. Children gain speech skills by listening to others, having conversations and exploring story telling. Breaks or disruptions in the flow of speech, including stutters, skipping parts of words or lisps are often a part of learning to communicate.
Lisping is very common in children 2 to 5 years old. Most children grow out of it without speech therapy. If your child’s lisp persists beyond age 5, interferes a lot at an earlier age or you have concerns about speech difficulties, talk to your clinician or a speech-language pathologist.
Stuttering is also common in the 2- to 5-year-old age range. In fact, as many as 90% of children experience stuttering. At this age it’s typically developmental stuttering and may be because your child doesn’t yet have the speech and language abilities to say what they’d like to. Stuttering may show up as repeating words or syllables, talking very slowly, lack of pauses or an uneven rate of speech. It can be more pronounced when your child is tired or stressed.
Kids and language: tips for caregivers
Some children barely notice stuttering or lisping, but for others, it can be barrier to communicate and can lead to insecurity. You can help your child’s speech development by encouraging them, modeling correct speech and asking other adults like caregivers and grandparents to do the same. Here are a few tips:
- Rather than correcting your child or asking them to practice sounds, encourage them to talk and communicate in a non-stressful environment about fun topics.
- Try to understand what your child is working to say rather than asking them to repeat themselves. Listening to them attentively helps build confidence.
- Don’t interrupt them, instead let them work to complete the thought or sentence themselves.
- Model the correct way to say the word, for example, repeat back, “you wanted the block?” You can also model slowing down speech.
- Talk openly about their stuttering or other speech issues if they bring up the subject.
If you have concerns or questions about your child’s speech delay or development, reach out to your clinician or a speech-language pathologist at any time.
Speech disorders are different than language disorders, when a child has difficulty getting their meaning across or understanding the message from others. If you child has trouble relaying the message or receiving it, visit with a clinician to discuss approaches to language disorders.
There’s a progression of speech development in all children, but the pace can vary, not only from child to child: Your child might reach some milestones quickly and take more time to develop other skills. The important thing is being on track reaching milestones overall and reaching out to a provider if you have concerns or they need extra help.
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