A speech therapist pushes back on the "Einstein syndrome" label for late talkers, noting that a popular book advises against speech therapy in most cases. She points out that causes of autism and speech delays remain unknown, and that parents already carry enough guilt without being told their child will catch up on their own.
The problem here is that in the book, it does talk about a little bit how late talking isn't about how the child won't talk. It's more about how other people, professionals or teachers, neighbors, point fingers and say, oh, you should get it checked out. And the guilt of that goes into the parent and they are guilt tripped into seeing more speech therapy. And in the book, it actually tells you to encourage you not to go for speech therapy in most cases. And that's where I feel a little bit uncomfortable. As a speech therapist myself, I really hate it when parental guilt is always being stirred up by other people around you. Just because their child is talking more than you, it gives them the right to talk, to give you advice. I always think that, hey, it's just a matter of chance. If their child were like that, they wouldn't have anything to say to you. It's just that they were born like that most of the time. And at this moment in time, we still do not know the reason for autism. We don't know the reason for language disorder, delay speech disorders, all these things. We don't really know why it happens. And similarly, we don't know why there's this Einstein syndrome.
