When a child begins to speak the first words, the child does not speak at 1.5, 2, 3 years

The formation of speech occurs from birth. First the baby cries, then he gurgles and babbles. Then he begins to speak in syllables. Its passive and active vocabularies are constantly updated.

The child learns to construct sentences and conduct dialogue. Thanks to speech, a person socializes. Every baby develops differently, but there are certain standards that the baby must meet.

All parents wait with great anticipation for the moment when the child begins to speak.

Ask questions

And it doesn’t matter at all that the baby can’t answer them yet, and doesn’t even realize the meaning of the question. But he hears a change in intonation and thus becomes acquainted with the language native to him and his parents. A little time will pass and you won’t even notice how your child will learn to clearly distinguish interrogative intonation.

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Why doesn't the baby talk?

Delayed speech development is provoked by the following factors:

Disorders of intrauterine development of the fetus or trauma during childbirth.
Diseases of the central nervous system (CNS): muscle hypotonia, damage to areas of the brain.
Hearing defects: congenital hearing loss, deafness, hearing loss. Such problems appear as a result of problematic pregnancy, burdened by heredity, or a bacterial infection suffered at an early age.
General underdevelopment of speech (alalia). Severe speech disorder is diagnosed in children whose mothers smoked or drank strong alcohol during pregnancy, faced the problem of gestosis (late toxicosis) or suffered from an infectious disease.
Intellectual retardation of varying degrees of severity. Drug therapy and classes with a speech pathologist can correct mental development disorders.
Autism spectrum disorders. The isolation and detachment of autistic children is the cause of delays in speech development.
Lack of attention from parents. If parents do not comment on their actions and do not address the child, his speech skills are formed with a delay.

Evgeny Komarovsky jokingly criticizes mothers who worry too early about their baby’s lack of speech. Many parents come to him with a similar problem when the baby is not yet a year old.

The doctor considers gadgets to be the main problem of speech underdevelopment of modern children. Because modern children interact more often with tablets and smartphones than with their parents.

Evgeniy Olegovich emphasizes the important role of the baby’s communication with mom and dad. He understands parents who are under constant stress. However, she recommends that they set aside time for games and activities with the baby. This pastime is more effective than drug therapy and the work of a speech therapist.

Komarovsky encourages parents to keep their little one occupied with simple toys, not gadgets. When playing with a ball, a teddy bear, a car or a doll, a child needs the participation of an adult. The parent shows how to play, talks about the purpose of the object, and expresses emotions from the process. All this stimulates the development of speech in the baby.

Eliminate baby talk

Despite the temptation, try not to babysit your child. Speak in simple language, but in normal words, as with an adult - you don’t know when the baby will begin to understand your words, this may happen unexpectedly early. Thanks to your conversations, the baby masters the basic units of language and the laws of their functioning.

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Speech development from 0 to 12 months

A pediatrician and a pediatric neurologist evaluate the baby’s development in accordance with existing standards:

by 6 months the child begins to babble and coo;
per year can pronounce a few simple words.

But the child’s development does not always correspond to the “standard”. A number of factors influence when a baby learns to speak:

the course of pregnancy and childbirth;
education methods;
gender

In most cases, girls start talking earlier than boys. And speech defects are diagnosed more often in boys. Genetic determination is also important: if relatives suffered from speech disorders, then the risk of their occurrence in the child increases.

The reason to contact a speech pathologist is a 1.5 year old child’s inability to understand simple words and a complete lack of speech at 1.9 years old.

Many parents are proud that a year and a half year old child speaks in long sentences and has a large vocabulary. But this is too much of a burden for the baby’s unformed nervous system. You should walk more with your child in the fresh air, relax, and minimize the information flow.

Signs of speech impairment in a child

When should mothers start sounding the alarm if she suspects her baby has speech problems? Experts identify several rather eloquent signs:

Too late humming, babbling, or their complete absence.
The baby does not pay attention to the touch of adults and averts his eyes during a conversation.
Phrasal speech does not develop even after two years.
By 18 months, the baby is not able to utter a single word.
When adults approach the child, he does not react.
If by the age of three your baby cannot speak in sentences, then we may be talking about underdevelopment of speech.

If you observe similar symptoms in your baby, it is important to urgently make an appointment with a specialist - a pediatric neurologist.

Reasons for silence

The most basic and most common reason that prevents a three-year-old child from speaking is hearing problems . They can be either congenital or acquired.

Hearing may be reduced slightly or significantly, up to deafness. The baby should be shown to an otolaryngologist. He will conduct a visual examination of the hearing organs and check the baby’s ability to perceive sounds.

If necessary, a pure-tone audiometry procedure will be prescribed, which shows with great accuracy how good your hearing is.

If no hearing problems are detected, parents will have to visit a pediatric neurologist. In some neurological disorders, the speech center is affected, so the doctor will have to find out if the baby has such pathologies. You will probably have to do an MRI to rule out the possibility of tumors or defects in the structure of the brain.

Komarovsky claims that abnormalities and diseases of the brain are very rarely the cause of speech delay, but this possibility cannot be completely excluded.

Congenital muteness is an extremely rare phenomenon with normal hearing; it is based on lesions of the speech apparatus.

If the baby is examined by specialists, and all of them unanimously claim that the child is completely healthy, the silence may have pedagogical and psychological reasons.

Sometimes a baby may refuse to speak after experiencing severe stress, fear, or severe fright. Much more often, the reason for silence lies in the incorrect educational approach of mom and dad: if parents communicate more in the evenings with virtual friends on the Internet than with their child, who is hanging around nearby, then the child simply has no place to acquire sufficient verbal communication skills. In these questions, you can contact a child psychologist or psychiatrist.

bilingual children whose families speak two languages at once have problems with speaking at the age of three

What to do if a child does not speak by age 2

If parents want to reassure themselves first of all, they should show the child to a neurologist. Komarovsky emphasizes that the doctor is unlikely to detect any diseases. At most, a diagnosis of “mental retardation” will be made, which does not mean anything terrible. But still, if a specialist discovers some kind of pathology, it is necessary to begin treatment. It is entrusted, again, to the doctor.

In the absence of pathologies, mom and dad themselves can make sure that the child speaks. If a child does not speak by the age of 2, Komarovsky advises the following measures.

Surround the child with attention if there was little before. But overprotection should not be allowed, because it leads to the opposite result.
Read illustrated books with your child or voice out to him what is drawn in the pictures. In everyday life, voicing actions and naming objects is also very useful.
Play educational games. Finger ones are especially suitable in this case. Komarovsky emphasizes that if you want, you can find many options, so there will be no shortage of fun time with your child.

And it is also worth remembering that when a child does not speak before the age of 2, he needs special care. Any attempts to speak must be encouraged. Then the child himself will want to learn to talk as soon as possible. There is nothing complicated in Komarovsky’s advice. The main thing is to strictly follow them. And as a result, you will be able to raise your own child healthy and developed. This is the result that every parent is obliged to achieve. Therefore, it’s definitely not worth sparing your efforts.

Post published: 08/08/2016

What is the age of the first word?

A child’s first word is an exciting moment in the life of every family. Moreover, it is not always necessary that it be a full-fledged word - experts say that it is enough for it to be a set of sounds that are similar to the word, for example, ka - porridge, te - aunt, bang instead of fell. The science of early development considers such statements to be full-fledged words. And here we can say that, answering the question when a child begins to speak, we can say that in a year. During the period when his vocabulary should contain ordinary speech therapy words-syllables, various onomatopoeias, etc.

In these cases, the solution goes through identifying the cause of the stress and its resolution. Sometimes a child needs to receive mental health care, and if this is the case, it is normal for parents to do so.

When the problem is psychological. At the beginning of this chapter, we told you that only two percent of sleep disorders have a psychological cause. In these cases, the technique we have described will not necessarily lead to results, since the cause is not a poorly acquired habit, but an emotional problem. First of all, you must keep in mind that events that change the mental state of parents also affect the young ones, because if parents are stressed, the children get busy and worry, which means the elders cannot give them enough confidence and peace of mind , to sleep.

The main problem here is to determine whether such statements are accidental. This is not so difficult to determine - if the same sets of sounds are repeated in the same situations, then we are talking about a pattern. Experts recommend not to play along with your baby by babbling like him. Indeed, in this case, the baby will never learn to speak correctly - you should initially speak to the baby correctly and literary beautifully. For example, a competent example of speech looks like this: when a child says: “Beep,” the mother should tell him: “Yes, it’s a car.” It is also worth stimulating him to show speech. For example, ask: “Where is the car?” - he must point to it or even name it.

Komarovsky's recommendations

For worried parents whose baby has not spoken by the age of 2, Dr. Komarovsky advises visiting a doctor. The examination includes consultations with a neurologist, speech therapist, psychologist, and otolaryngologist. An ENT doctor is needed to rule out deafness or hearing loss. To do this, the specialist will refer you for a hardware test called an audiogram. It will determine your hearing level and range of sounds.

A neurologist is the main specialist working with preschoolers who have delays in speech function. It will help identify the causes of speech deviations. The doctor will conduct the necessary examination (history, examination), prescribe additional techniques: neurosonography, electroencephalography, magnetic resonance imaging and others. If necessary, he will recommend therapy (Encephabol, Pantogam and other drugs), which will give impetus to the appearance of speech function.

During the examination, the neurologist will find out:

General development of the baby (when he began to smile, walk, understand the conversation of others).
Skills at the time of examination.

After the examination, the neurologist refers you to a speech therapist for consultation. The specialist conducts an examination and special tests for speech function. After the first visit, the speech therapist writes a conclusion and draws up a lesson plan. While working with the child, the teacher develops speech function: teaches him to pronounce sounds, words, and sentences properly.

Common pathologies that a speech therapist detects:

Short bridle.
Increased muscle tone of the articulatory apparatus.

Consultation with a psychologist is necessary for all children with speech impairments. The specialist will assess the state of speech function and identify pathology. A psychologist is also necessary to exclude or confirm psychological trauma, chronic stress and other conditions. Based on the results of the examination, treatment is prescribed (conversations, art therapy, trainings, dolphin therapy, etc.), if required.

Spend more time with your baby.
Constantly articulate all your actions and intentions.
Do not give your preschooler phones or tablets, and limit watching cartoons.
Read more, memorize nursery rhymes, poems, songs.
Do not scold your child when he refuses to say something.
Ask questions to the baby, namely: “What do you see in the picture?”, “Who came?”, “What color is the hat?” and so on.
Organize the baby’s communication with peers and older children.
Protect from stressful situations and conflicts in the family.

Stages of baby speech development

There are no healthy children who would not learn to speak, would not understand what was said and would not be able to pronounce various words and sentences. The foundations of speech in children are laid almost from the very birth of the child. Until 6 months, he actively absorbs everything his mother tells him, and this becomes the basis of his speech. There are no talking children at that age.

After all that has been said, we have no doubt that Giorgakis is a smart man, a very smart man, who will not bend our will to change at first. If a child sees that they leave him in his cradle or bed and do not show him the wrong way, what will he do to restore his privileges? He will try until he finds something that will provoke a reaction from his parents.

Perhaps before he succeeds, Giorgakis must grab Benny and send him to the mistakes, and as a next step, put them all empty-handed and make them fly in the air. If you pick them up, the child will drag them again, and if you pick them up again, they will end up on the floor again. Who will win?

Parents often confuse baby talk with speech. In reality this is not the case. Babbling is essentially training and preparing the speech apparatus for active speaking. It contributes to the development of knowledge and activation of speaking. At the same time, doctors still determine a number of achievements of the baby at different times - up to two years. Because exactly 2 years is the point for many when the baby should speak.

Everything is clear, Giorgakis, because he will carry out his action, and you will have a sting: he will manage to respond exactly to what he asked. What should you do? Let's move on to our topic: one of the two will talk to the child and he will fly around to get your attention, crying bitterly. The "government representative" will continue to talk like nothing is happening and after finishing his speech he will take them everywhere, put him back on the crib as if he doesn't take such things, tell him goodnight and he will make changes and leave .

Who would win? The same is true if we put him in bed to sleep and he gets up and we bring him back. What will he do? He will return. And you probably don't want to spend the whole night, right? Yorakakis will probably want this because it will mean that you were with him. So, in order not to be defeated, you must let him lie down as you think best, and then let him do what his appetite draws: we don't even mean it.

How speech develops up to six months

At 1 month of age, the child already has a reaction to speech. So, for example, he can stop crying if his parents start talking to him kindly, comforting him and calming him down. By the end of 3 months, the baby begins to show signs of humming - he begins to show liveliness of character and quite actively participates in communication with adults.

HOW TO LEARN TO YOU THE SUCCESS OF THE SUN. We do not create this situation to sleep with the child, but only to connect him to a pleasant moment before he starts sleeping alone. If the baby is crying, parents should come in at short intervals only to instill reassurance, without doing anything to put him to sleep or stop crying until the baby falls asleep on his own.

Create a little ritual around the overgrowth.
Parents should leave the room before the child falls asleep.

Obviously, the “great battle” was given, but it had begun.
At 5 months, the child usually becomes interested in where this or that sound comes from. And if he starts singing, which is not uncommon, his voice intonation changes. Around 7 months, the baby can pronounce individual syllables, such as ba, ma, etc.

It makes sense that as Yiorgakis leaves the room, he raises the intensity of his cramming and his crying sounds become clear throughout the house. What we definitely can't do is walk away and let the bloody Iorgakians scream to their final collapse from sheer exhaustion. Why not? Because we train him, we don't punish him. If we think that “he will get tired and fall,” what we are conveying to the child is that he is in a state of punishment or abandonment. However, we cannot enter his room to calm him down until a reasonable amount of time has passed.

Further development of speech

If you start to monitor how your baby’s speech develops, you should look at what he says next. At 8 months of age, the child speaks more and more in syllables, for example, ba-ba-ba, ma-ma-ma, etc. The number of sounds that the baby can operate with begins to expand. By 10 months, his syllables can even form words: mom, lalya, etc.

What else can Giorgaki do? Cry. And he won't cry like that, but looks at us with the sad look that his face can get. It is the most effective weapon and knows it, after all, this is the first idiom through which it was understood. And he knows that when he cries, one of them usually answers first. In it he will direct his gaze, waiting for it to bite. He uses whining as a form of action. But parents have now learned to stand out when their child cries in pain and when they succeed.

So, they already know that Giorgakis is not "that serious" and therefore they should feel calm and continue with their speech. And by the time they finish it, even if the baby is crying, even if they are screaming from the inside, and they have to leave. How many? To begin with, just one minute, one of the two will work on his call so that Giorgakis can see him.

A child already has 5 words in his vocabulary per year, mostly two-syllable. But he shows that he understands speech addressed to him very well - he can respond to his parents’ request to bring a ball, give him a pyramid, etc. Understands the word impossible. And just during this period, the baby already begins to operate with words dear to his heart - mom and dad.

These times apply when the child first goes to bed at 30 o'clock and when he wakes up in the middle of the night. They gradually develop after behavioral methods of exhaustion, until we can understand the child that crying cannot do anything and falls asleep alone. As you can check, the time increases over time.

It's very easy to walk into a small room without her feeling abandoned. And don't even let your mind wait more than five minutes: that's the longest time it can be left alone on the first day of its "retraining." If you did this, it would be inhumane: the one who is most afraid of the baby is that his parents do not want this and leave him, and this will be the message he will receive if you do not properly monitor with your visits. If, on the contrary, you go to him and talk to him with love, without shouting or getting angry, but showing great calm, Giorgakis will finally understand that dad and mom have not left him alone, that they love him very much, but, Since he can cry so many scenes like him, they are not going to stay, but nothing comes alone before bed.

Next, the vocabulary begins to actively expand, because There is also a more active knowledge of the world. The baby forms certain connections - he can interconnect objects and actions, and select explanations for them. There can only be one rule here - talk to him more often, explain, show him. This will allow the child to better navigate space, receive an explanation of certain words and sentences, etc. Teaching a child to speak correctly is not that difficult - the main thing is to have patience and love.

All this will calm him down, give him the feeling of security he needs, and eventually he will be able to fall asleep. We think we can already hear your question: “How long will I have to sleep?” Some children receive more than others; to capture a message, you usually have to wait two hours.

Useful tips from experts for parents

To ensure that the child’s speech develops correctly from the very beginning and the likelihood of delayed speech development in the future is significantly reduced, experts advise:

From birth to three months, talk to the baby in a gentle voice, sing songs, and at the same time it is advisable to periodically change the location of sounds, moving around the crib where the baby is lying.
From three months to six months, try to evoke sounds (babbling) in the child in response to your communication, while during contact you should maintain a joyful state, smile, laugh.
From six months to one year, actively stimulate the baby's babbling. To do this, every time the child begins to babble, you need to enter into a dialogue with him, and repeat simple words such as: mom, give, dad, and others as often as possible. In addition, during this period, you need to teach the baby movements and actions that follow a specific statement from an adult (“Okay,” bye or goodbye, give me a pen, give me a toy, etc.).
From one to two years old, with the child, learn the names of surrounding objects (furniture, dishes, dishes, clothes), animals, birds, as well as body parts. You also need to explain to the baby the connections and relationships between objects. For example, “the cat eats from a bowl”, “mom washes the cup”, “the car is driving along the road”, etc. During this period, the child is already able to follow instructions consisting of two or three actions: go, take, bring.
From two to three years old, the child needs to be introduced to more complex objects, actions and pictures, verbally talking about the thing being studied. During this period, it is important that the child listens to and understands spoken language as much as possible; for this, simple stories and poems can be read to him. Until the age of three, a child must learn to talk about his impressions, about the objects he saw and their properties, try to pronounce words correctly and construct sentences.

If a physically healthy child by the age of 2 lags significantly behind his peers in speech development, but doctors have not identified such an ailment as mental retardation in the child, it is recommended to radically change the rules of child upbringing and lifestyle established in the family. At the same time, it is worth remembering that most often by the age of three, children, as they say, break through, and they talk a lot. You need to work with your child, but you shouldn’t be too fanatical about it so as not to harm him.

Why do children start talking late?

In addition to the influence of gender and age characteristics, speech is influenced by a lot of factors:

Ecology, genetics, medicine (including reproductive). Moms used to be healthier. Stimulation is used more often. As a result, neurological changes prevent one from speaking “according to age.”
Minimal or unproductive communication. A child with a gadget in his hands is left to his own devices, and parents communicate with him less often, using simpler phrases.
Poor fine motor skills, hypertonicity or underdevelopment of muscles. A lot of organs and systems are involved in the formation of speech. As a result, the lack of development of, for example, the trapezius muscle alone forces the tongue to “tuck in” to compensate, and instead of speech, the child ends up with an inarticulate mess.

In general, the state of speech depends on three factors: brain physiology, behavioral diversity (what the child does, with whom) and the richness of the environment (communications with different people).

Therefore, it is reasonable if the child begins to speak later, talk to him, read to him, choose cartoons with well-spoken characters. It is important to ensure communication with peers - so that his opportunities for action are as diverse as possible, and the environment becomes richer.

The main stages of a child’s speech development

The most important and productive period in terms of speech development in a child is the age from 8 months to four years.

Throughout this period, the child goes through several stages of speech development:

From 8 months to a year. At this age, most children begin to consciously pronounce individual syllables, simple words consisting of repeated syllables (for example, ma-ma, ba-ba, pa-pa, bi-bi) and monosyllabic words (like am, mu, woof, na, give it).
One and a half to two and a half years. Around this period, children's vocabulary expands significantly. The child expresses himself using more complex words (consisting of several syllables), simple phrases and phrases. He can talk about some phenomena, actions and objects. For example, “Mom, give me a cup,” “Dad, let me eat,” “Give me something to drink,” etc.
Three years. At this age, the child tries to change words depending on gender, case, number, etc. He is already able to tell in simple sentences what he saw in a picture, on the street, etc. At this age, the so-called “why” period begins: the child is interested in literally everything he sees around him. The more patiently and in detail parents try to answer all the baby’s questions, the more his horizons expand.
Four years. Practically, preschoolers, as a rule, already know how to construct complex sentences, describing the world around them.

If at any stage of the child’s speech development a clear delay is noticeable, parents should be wary and try to find out what is the reason for such deviations from the norm. Experts such as:

neurologist;
psychologist;
speech therapist;
otolaryngologist.

Only with the help of qualified doctors can you make sure that everything is in order, or what needs to be worked on in order to help your child move to the next stage of speech development as early as possible.

At what age do boys and girls start speaking in sentences?

From the age of 1.5-2 years, instead of the usual babbling, the baby begins to pronounce simple phrases. By this time, his vocabulary contains approximately 50-100 words.

The child tries to construct simple sentences from them. By the age of three, the vocabulary is about 250-300 words. Children begin to use not only nouns, but also verbs in their speech.

The baby strives to explore the world around him. Therefore, he often asks his mother questions “when?”, “why?”, “why?”. The child already pronounces simple sentences well and speaks a language that adults can understand.

By the end of three years of age, children have mastered complex grammatical forms and speech structures. They are already full-fledged interlocutors and use correctly coordinated phrases.

Normally, a three-year-old child should have the following speech skills:

pronounce at least 250 words;
make up a short story based on the picture;
know your age, gender, first and last name, pronounce them;
use verbs, prepositions and pronouns in speech;
understand the essence of fairy tales;
make complex sentences.

At what age a child begins to speak in sentences depends on various factors:

when the baby began to pronounce his first words;
how his parents dealt with him.

Who to contact for help

The reasons leading to speech delay are different. To solve a problem, parents sometimes have to contact several specialists. Among them, five main ones can be distinguished - speech therapist, defectologist, ENT (to exclude hearing impairment), neurologist or neuropsychiatrist.

There are various methods for correcting general speech underdevelopment (GSD) and tempo delay (RTD), which are used by speech therapists and speech pathologists. In combination with the necessary medication correction prescribed by doctors, they give excellent results.

How to test your child's hearing at home

Drug treatment is used only in severe cases; it is often possible to do without it. Sometimes it is not needed at all, but doctors prescribe medications. A good speech therapist can compensate for some of them by simply working with the baby; there will be no need to take them.

Remember that only doctors have the right to prescribe medications. Speech therapists do not have this right.

For their part, parents must create a rich speech environment during the correction to stimulate the child’s speech. You need to force the baby to talk, pretend that you don’t understand him if he is trying to explain with gestures what he wants.

When visiting a specialist, parents of a child with delayed speech development need to openly talk about possible problems with the child’s health in order to receive effective help from him.

In case of speech delay, parents can work with their children independently. Many do just that: for the first time they turn to a speech therapist for advice, and based on the knowledge and materials acquired, they begin independent work.

The task of the speech therapist in this case is to diagnose speech development and identify the child’s problems. After this, parents understand the current situation and begin to work with the baby independently.

Reviews about a specialist are important, but there is a nuance. Just because a speech therapist helped the son or daughter of your friend/neighbor, this does not mean that he will be able to help your child. All children are different, with their own characteristics and skills, and it is not always possible for a specialist to find an approach to a child and solve his problems.

Pay attention to the recommendations and experience of the speech therapist. You can decide whether you will go to him after you see him at work and make sure that the child is interested in the process. The best way to evaluate a speech therapist is to come for a diagnosis and see how the speech therapist works, how the baby reacts, and how interested he is.

The state is trying to the best of its ability to help children with speech delays. For this purpose, state centers for psychological, pedagogical and medical and social assistance have been created. They are located in every district of large cities and provide services free of charge. But getting there is not easy, since there are many children with problems, and the number of places is limited.

Doctor Komarovsky's opinion

Dr. Komarovsky is a famous pediatrician who became widely known thanks to television programs. In them, he gives expert advice to mothers of children regarding various parenting problems.

In his programs, he repeatedly discussed the topic of children's speech development.

According to Dr. Komarovsky, mothers begin to sound the alarm too early about what the child is saying. Laughing, he says that mothers come to him with this problem when the baby is not yet a year old.
Also, in his speeches, Komarovskikh repeatedly speaks about the harm of modern gadgets on the development of children. According to the doctor, modern children “communicate much more with phones and tablets than with their mother and father.” Komarovsky emphasizes the importance of communication between parents and children. Modern parents are very busy and themselves experience constant stress, however, despite the high pace of life, it is extremely important to find time every day to communicate with the child, says Evgeniy Olegovich. According to the doctor, there is no point in taking the baby to the doctors and “looking for a magic pill” if he experiences a lack of communication in his family. Emotional communication with mom and dad sometimes gives a much greater result in the development of a child’s speech than drug treatment.
In his program “What to do if a child of 2 years old does not speak,” Komarovsky explains in detail the difference in the development of children who play with gadgets and toys. Evgeniy Olegovich explains that when a child plays with a simple rubber ball or doll, he always needs a connecting object between the toy and himself - an adult. The adult explains to the child exactly how to play with this object, talks about its properties, and reacts emotionally to the child’s play with the object. Emotional communication between an adult and a baby stimulates his verbal communication.

First, the child develops a need to understand what adults tell him. Thus, so-called passive speech is formed - the baby’s ability to understand speech addressed to him.

At 2 years old, a child should be able to follow double instructions. For example: Take the Masha doll and give it to me.” If a child at 2 years old does not speak, but understands the speech of adults, we can say that he has passed stage 1 of speech development - the formation of passive speech. The next stage is the development of active speech, when the child begins to speak individual words and then build sentences from them.

What to do if the child does not speak

For parents who are worried that their child is still not talking at 2 years old, Komarovsky recommends that they consult a doctor.

Surveys

Examination by an ENT specialist It is necessary to conduct a hardware hearing examination and make an audiogram that will show the baby’s hearing level, as well as the range of sounds that he hears.
Consultation with a neurologist Neurological pathologies are a common cause of deviations in speech development, from mild to severe. An examination by a neurologist will allow you to diagnose existing diseases and begin to treat them in a timely manner. Before going to a neurologist, try to remember all the important milestones of development: When the child began to roll over, sit, walk • When the baby began to walk, understand the speech of adults addressed to him • What skills and abilities he has now. Your doctor will definitely ask you about this, so be prepared to answer these questions.
Consultation with a speech therapist A speech therapist will help identify developmental disorders of the speech apparatus. The most common pathologies are: • frenulum • hypotonicity of the facial muscles and tongue.
Consultation with a child psychologist

The psychologist will examine the baby’s speech and identify his deviations from the norm. It will also help you figure out whether there are psychological reasons for the lack of speech.

Advice from Dr. Komarovsky

Assess your child for physical and neurological problems.
Consult a speech therapist and child psychologist.
Limit your baby’s interaction with any gadgets: phone, tablet, TV.
Try to communicate more with your toddler: name objects and phenomena out loud, loudly and clearly.
Speak out the actions you take. “Now we’ll eat and go play ball. Dad will come soon and we’ll go for a walk in the yard together.”
Don't scold your child if he is silent. Parents' negative reaction to the lack of speech can only worsen the situation. On the contrary, try to reinforce your two-year-old’s attempts to communicate with positive emotions: a smile, praise.

If the baby starts to say “ma-ma-ma” when he sees you, smile at him and say: “Yes, Sonechka, mom has come, now we’ll go for a swim. Who here likes to swim in warm water with a duck? Sonya! How does the duck speak, Sonechka? Quack-quack, quack-quack!”

Encourage any attempts by the toddler to speak: new sounds, new words, attempts to imitate adults. “Beep beep”, that’s right Igorechek, the car beeps “beep beep”.
Ask your child open-ended questions: what do you see in the picture? What is the bear cub's name? What color is the ball?
Read children's poems, fairy tales, and sing songs to your baby. Look at the baby elephant:

The child has a long trunk! - And I can do that too! – Seryozha says to his mother. He curled his lips into a tube and pulled forward! - Look how good it is! - I look like an elephant!

Learn tongue twisters, fairy tales, and nursery rhymes together.

*** The gray wolf under the old tree clicked his teeth for two hours. He opened his mouth wide, but didn’t catch the bunny. *** Egorka goes to his grandmother: Climbs the hill, After the hill there is a lowland again. River... Bridge arched his back.

Encourage the “silent one” to communicate with other children. Try to visit playgrounds more often, invite peers to visit so that the baby has the opportunity to communicate with other children.
Don't predict your child's wishes. Give him the opportunity to express them to adults. Clarify his requests: what kind of juice will you have, apple or peach?
If possible, protect your baby from stress.

So, if a child does not speak at 2 years old, Dr. Komarovsky advises not to panic, examine the baby and create favorable conditions for development at home , then he will certainly speak.

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Why doesn't the child speak?

It is worth noting that recently there are more and more “silent” and at the same time absolutely healthy children who lag significantly behind their peers in terms of speech development. According to statistics, the number of non-speaking children is growing every year. According to experts, the development of this trend is greatly influenced by social factors, namely:

Lack of attention on the part of adults living with the child. The baby simply has no one to talk to. A fairly common mistake made by parents themselves is to brush off their child, especially after a hard day at work. You may be familiar with such harmful phrases as: “What are these stupid questions?”, “I’m tired, shut up a little,” “What nonsense are you talking about,” “Let’s talk later.” Such statements completely kill any desire in the child to communicate.
Various kinds of gadgets are a child’s “best friends.” Many parents, due to workload or being overly busy with household chores, do not know how to allocate time for “live” communication with their child, instead offering him a TV, tablet or computer.

Attention

Psychologists have noticed that this approach to raising a child negatively affects not only his speech development, but also his emotional state.

Frequent quarrels between parents, loud showdowns between family members.
Mom or dad speak too quickly, as a result of which it is difficult for the child to isolate individual words and, accordingly, master speech.
Family members speak different languages, or the family has immigrated to another country. A child has to master two or more languages at once, which takes a little more time.
Overprotection on the part of parents eliminates the need for the child to master speech, since all his needs are instantly guessed and satisfied.

Another reason for a child's silence is his autism . The number of children living in “their own world” is growing literally every year. Autistic people do not need to communicate with the outside world, so they do not feel the need to master their native language. Psychologists, neurologists and psychotherapists “work” with such children.

Why speech development delay occurs, its consequences

Speech delay can occur for the following reasons:

physical exhaustion due to somatic diseases;
pathologies of the ears and nasopharynx;
damage to the central nervous system;
disadvantages of upbringing due to inattention to the child, when they do not engage with him and communicate little.

Pathologies of the central nervous system can arise due to birth trauma, asphyxia during childbirth, past infection, skull trauma, and genetically determined diseases.

Neglect of development is a fairly common reason why a child of 2.5 years does not speak. Many parents have no time to take care of their child and instead of communicating with dad or mom, he plays alone or gets a tablet in his hands for the whole day, which is not particularly conducive to speech development, no matter what developmental applications there are.

Children's speech delays, if not corrected in a timely manner in early childhood, can lead to mental retardation. Therefore, if your baby does not speak at two and a half years old, this is an alarming symptom of a big brewing problem.

The child will not be able to feel comfortable in kindergarten and school, his developmental deviation will be noticeable to his peers, and socialization problems may arise. The baby will begin to withdraw into himself, will not obey, and the parents will experience anxiety.

Many parents first listen to the advice of friends or anonymous people on forums that it’s worth waiting. And when it becomes too late and an unpleasant diagnosis is made, they begin to sound the alarm and think about what to do.

The well-known pediatrician Dr. Komarovsky E.O., whose opinion is completely trusted by many mothers and grandmothers, believes that you need to start working on speech development as early as possible - for example, from one year old. If you feel anxious about speech formation, seek advice from a specialist - a speech therapist, a child psychologist or a neurologist.

Two and a half years is the age when you can start sounding the alarm. It is better to think about the problem at two years. The principle is simple - preventing a speech development problem is much easier than solving it. Do you know parents who take their children to private speech therapists for several years? There are a lot of them... and this could have been avoided.