Audiologist Questions Preventative Medicine Specialist

Can you prevent speech delay?

My baby is 1 year old. She is not talking yet. Can you prevent speech delay?

3 Answers

Most of the time yes if you provide good stimulation, talk and sing to the child. Make sure he doesnt have middle ear infections and if he does take care of it asap. However, if there are neurological conditions like Downs syndrome or Autism etc the child will be at high risk for speech delay but by intervention in a timely manner it can be managed. But it may persist for the lifetime. Normal children can overcome speech delay.
Not really. Modeling, imitating and reading to your child are the best ways to stimulate language development.
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I would take the child to an Ear-Nose-Thraot Dcotor/Audiologist to have them evaluate your child. They will have current diagnostic equipment to test your child beyond a normal hearing test. It is important that you follow through testing your child because children start acquiring language around 6 months, even though they are not speaking at that age.