Will Your Speech Delayed Child Catch up?

Hello, this is ming here from agentsofspeech.com today in this video, we'll talk about whether your speech and language delayed child will catch up or not. I hear this question so many times when I'm in the clinic and during these times in a pandemic, it translates to getting this on Facebook, on email, you know, on DMs and PMs and so on. So I want to make this video, although it wouldn't reach everyone and new parents and so on. But I hope to address this question once and for all here. Okay? So first of all, it really depends on your child's diagnosis and severity. So you know, you've been on this channel, you've been watching me, you know that sometimes I will say that diagnosis doesn't really matter so much and so on, so forth. But I'm only saying this is because I want you to take action and start doing stuff at home, okay? Because parent involvement is the number one thing that determines whether a child will, you know, will develop fast and catch up or not. Right? So for instance, if your child's diagnosis is about speech sound error, speech sound disorder, meaning they have problems pronouncing words, if they're saying their name is Stacy, they cannot pronounce the S, then it become dati, right? It deletes the S or something, then that's a speech sound disorder or speech sound delay. Okay, then what do we need to do here is to see how severe it is. So there are different severities for this kind of disorder, right? That might be because apraxia of speech, it might be because of dysarthria. There's a lot of things. On the speech sound disorder side, it's better to see a speech therapist ASAP if you feel like that's what's going on with the child. And then whether they will catch up or not is pretty much based on how much you're practicing with him or her, right? Because at the end of the day, it is a very motoric task, okay? And the more you practice something, the better you will become this. Therefore it's the same as speech sounds. So if you keep on sticking to the plan of your speech therapist and keep on doing it over and over and over and over again, then your child will catch up. Whether how fast they will catch up or not, it depends on how the therapy is conducted, if the therapy is working for them or not. And secondly, how severe the child is. If we're talking about a speech sound disorder that is rendering, making a child unable to Speak one word, even two words at a time because it's so difficult, then obviously it will take quite some time. Okay. It might be a lifetime journey like some of my students that, you know, by the time they are in secondary school adult, they're starting to really be able to articulate words correctly. Okay, we're talking about that long, but it really depends. It might be just a kid who has a problem with l sound like a kid that I saw two months ago. Then obviously they will catch up pretty quickly. I mean within a month or two if we, if the mother does the homework at home really diligently, that really takes very little time. Let's talk about the other side in terms of language delay or disorder. Delay means that everything looks normal, typically developing, but it's just slower, right? So language delays usually do catch up, but it really depends on the severity again, right? Because even if your child is only delayed, what happens is that because of that delay. And if you have read that book by Malcolm Gladwell, I might be getting his name wrong. 10,000 hours of mastery is. You can see that children who are born in January, I am one myself, tend to be able to excel in the things that they do and because they only have a few months ahead of those years. So imagine a three year old who has three months ahead of their peers and those three months actually mean a lot when you're younger. But the opposite is true, right? If your child is three years old and they're like six months behind in terms of language, think about how much less opportunities they will have, how much less social interactions they will fruitful social interaction they can have, how much friendship they can build if they are six months to a year delayed. And therefore this whole effect will carry forward, will carry down, same as those, those children who are born in January, there are a few months ahead. This effect carries forward, right? They get more opportunities, they learn more, they get put inside of a better class and so on and so forth. The same as for those who are behind. All right? And that's why we see and this is not anyone's fault or the system's fault or whatever, it's just reality. But that children who are language related will struggle and it becomes a risk factor that they even academics, reading, writing becomes hard for them. Okay, so let's talk about language disorder. Language disorder is something that usually we put not every, but most of the time is related to autism spectrum disorder. And whether if they will actually catch up or not. We shouldn't even think about in that way because it's disorder. It's out of order. And if you're using someone who is on the spectrum, that theoretically we shouldn't put them on the same weighing scale as someone who is neurotypical. Right. So therefore, whenever a child is on the spectrum or have a language disorder, it might be actually a lifelong journey. And most of the time it is. Okay? Anyone who tells you that someone has become neurotypical from ASD, I don't know what they're saying actually, 100% of the time, Autism spectrum disorder is lifelong. It's a total different operating system than neurotypical people like you and I who are watching most probably, it might be a long fight and going into speech therapy. If your child isn't those mild speech disorders we talk about, meaning they only have a few sounds that are lacking, like the T and K is mixed up, the L is gone or something. They can't say the R sound. Then you need to start thinking about whether it's going to be a long fight or not. Okay? And most of the time it is. And why I'm saying this is because your involvement is super important. You going in as the mother, as the father, knowing that this is going to stick for quite some time. Because there's no magic bullet. There's no, like, some magic that will happen and then suddenly, click, maybe down the road they will be able to catch up. And most probably they would, to some extent, they would be able to function in this world. And if we're not talking about those, excluding those children who are not only just speech and language disordered or delayed, meaning that they have other complexities in their life, might have physiological problems. All right? Then to some extent, they will be at least be able to communicate with you somehow or have some functional speech going on. Okay. And whether or not they will catch up is also according to your own expectation of your child as well. Right? So there was one time where a parent came up to me, the child is five, cannot speak, yet the child has apraxia of speech, has an open mouth structure, meaning they cannot close their teeth like that. There's a hole here. And then the tongue wasn't very well developed and so on. And then she was saying to me the first lesson, she was like, oh, how. How is he gonna make it in university? How is he gonna talk to his friends? How is he gonna work in the. In the future? Although, yes, everyone should plan for the future. And I don't mean to, you know, step on your dreams. I don't mean that. All but we need to take this step by step. Right. If your child cannot speak right now, the next step is obviously to think about how to get them to talk the first word or get their sounds accurate. Right. Therefore, whether your child will catch up or not, first of all, is relative, your expectations and hopes. Second of all, it depends on the disorder and the severity. Third of all, really is something that no one can answer. I have a client, I have a student. She's 30 years old. She's on the spectrum. And she only became able to start talking in sentences in her 20s. She's now able to work. Right. She's now able to communicate. When she came to me, we had to revisit. We had to go back and help her with. Because she was on the spectrum. It's a disorder, see, it's out of the place. She's able to communicate, she's able to work. But some basic functions she cannot do. Right? That's why it's all jumbled up. That's why it's a disorder. That's why it's going to be lifelong. Because there are some things that are lacking. No matter how well you do your therapy, we always prioritize some skills over the other. Right. So sorry for this long rant. I hope that you understand a little bit more about what I. What I mean here. And it really is dependent on you as the parent to think about where your hopes and dreams are and how you can help your child to go to the next level and then we can talk about the next ones moving forward. And it really largely depends on a whole bunch of factors. No one can ever tell you if your child will catch up or not. If someone can, then I don't know what they're talking about. Well, other than what I said, those very simple speech disorders, right? Those what we call articulation disorders or phonetic or phonological disorders. If you hear those, if it's. The severity is like mild. You'll be done in a few months. Okay, so that's it for this video. If you haven't, you should go to agents of Speech.com checklist. It's a list of tools and toys you can. We recommend you to get when you're starting your home therapy. All right, so that's all for this video. And I'll see you in the next one real soon. Bye bye.