• Your child has no interest in communicating with others
• Your child is 9 months old, and he doesn’t respond to auditory stimuli such as noise and speech
• Your child is 9 months old doesn’t babble
• Your child is 12 months and doesn’t point or gesture for preferred toys, objects, people

In early stages of development, communication disorder is when your child is not able to use their own voice, gestures, facial expressions to express his needs, and may have difficulty in understanding you. When a child is presenting delays in his communication skills, he is at high risk of having difficulty in social integration and speech and language development delays.

• If you feel that your child has difficulty communicating and expressing his needs, don’t hesitate to seek proper professional help. The fact is, babies or toddlers are never too young for a communication skills assessment.
• Early identification of communication difficulties in children can prevent other problems developing, such as challenging behavior and learning difficulties.
• ONESTI’s speech and language therapy team members can provide you with a thorough communication skill assessment, tips, and guidance to accompany you and your child on his developmental journey.
• If you think your child’s communications skills are delayed, it is advised that you fill ONESTI’s developmental screening checklist to help you learn more about your child’s strengths and weaknesses in communication.

• Your child is one year old and still has no word expression
• Your child is 18 months and doesn’t understand simple commands or questions (e.g. don’t touch, where’s your nose?)
• Your child is three and still expresses himself using one-word sentences

A child with a language delay can have a combination of delayed skills.
These delays could affect the language form:

• How sounds are put together in a word. For example: to make the word banana instead of putting together [ba] [na] [na] he will say [ba] [na]. If this continues after age 3 there is a delay.
• The meaning of words. For example: your child still mixes up in using adjectives to describe something/someone. He would say {he is big} to say the person is tall. If this continues after age 6 there is a delay.
• How words form sentences. For examples; we say ’’give me my shoes ‘’ not ‘’give shoes for me’’. If your child passed his 4th birthday and still is unable to use correct sentence forms, there is a delay.

These delays could affect the language content: (the meaning we put in syntaxes)

• For example: if your child is 9 years old and wants to talk about his favorite toy or write about something he did in school, but has difficulty organizing his ideas, is jumping from one idea to another, or changing the topic altogether. This is a sign of delay.

These delays could affect the language function: (the rules of language in social situations). Communication and interaction can be both verbal and nonverbal.

• For example: if your child has difficulty in understanding the implied rules of a social situation. For example: If he attends a birthday party, and finds it difficult to communicate with his friends in a socially correct manner. If he visits the dentist’s clinic and it is challenging for him to interact appropriately with the dentist. This shows that your child has a delay in language function.

The language function develops as your child grows and evolves based on the number of social situations your child experiences.

The language acquisition of all children occurs gradually through interaction with people and the environment. Most parents know instinctively if all is not well with their own child’s development.

Follow your instincts! If you think your child’s language development is behind, it is advised that you fill ONESTI’s developmental screening checklist to help you learn more about your child’s strengths and weaknesses in language development.

Receptive skills are the ability to understand words, sentences, ideas or concepts. Both in oral and written language.
For example:

• Your child starts to develop his receptive skills way before his expressive skills. As early as 6 months of age, you start noticing that your child is understanding more and more of what’s going on in his environment. By his first birthday, your child should begin to follow one step directions and as he grows, he should be able to follow more complex directions. If he is not able to do so then this could be early signs of delay in receptive skills.
• If your child is older than 6 years and still has difficulty doing what you ask him and needs constant reminders and/or repetition or is not able to follow the teacher’s directives; this could be because he is finding difficulty in understanding oral requests.
• If your child is older than 9 years and still has difficulty in understanding written directives or texts; this could be because he is finding difficulty in understanding written language.

If you are noticing delays in any one or more of the above receptive skills, do not wait! Fill ONESTI’s developmental screening checklist and contact our professionals to learn more about your child’s language development and what you can do NOW to help your child.

Expressive skills are the ability to express wants and needs in a nonverbal or verbal manner, and also in writing.

• If your child is 1 year old and still doesn’t communicate with gestures or by pointing and has no words, his expressive skills are delayed. Most children by 18 months have up to 50 words that they can use.
• Most children by 2 years of age have 2 to 3-word sentences. If your child has a reduced number of words and complex sentences for her age, her expressive skills are delayed.

Often, a child with a language delay has a combination of receptive and expressive delays.

ONESTI team is here for you and your child. Through play, modeling, book reading and other fun activity our team will help your child:

• Develop alternative forms of communication
• Improve play skills to aid in expressive language development
• Improve pre-language skills to aid in the development of expressive language
• Develop vocabulary
• Help reduce frustration in a child who can’t get their message understood

Onesti’s expert team will support you and give you strategies on how to use day to day activities to help your child expand and develop his expressive skills. Fill out ONESTI’s developmental screening checklist to know more about your child’s expressive skills.

• My child is 15 months old and is not producing any sounds
• My child is 18 months old doesn’t have at least 10 spontaneous (not copied) words
• My child is 24 months old and still doesn’t do word combinations
• My child is 24 months old doesn’t have at least 50 words in his vocabulary
• My child is 3 years old and he is not understood by a stranger at least 75% of the time

Speech delay is when the child is developing at a slower manner than the norms. For example: if your child is 18 months and can use less than 20 words to name objects, this means that he is developing at his own pace yet it is slower than other children his age.

How do I know that my child is developing slower than his peers?

Check out ONESTI’s developmental screening checklist to know more.

Speech delays may be caused by environmental factors, such as a lack of stimulation. But in many cases, the cause of speech delay is unknown.

The following are examples of speech disorders:

Articulation disorder

If your child is unable to produce certain speech sounds or she has trouble making the sounds correctly with the articulators (lips, tongue, teeth, jaw, and velum), but knows where each sound is supposed to be placed in a word – he /she has an articulation disorder.

Example: when your child is unable to make the /s/ sound. So instead of saying : sun,  he will say [dun]. Or if he is unable to produce the/R/ sound he would say [yaya] for  Yara.

Sound production milestones chart

Phonological disorder

If your child doesn’t follow typical speech patterns such as saying all the sounds in the word in it right place or for example if dropping the last consonant, like saying “boo” for book but is able to say car, then he/ she might have a phonological disorder.

If your child can produce the sounds correctly in isolation and in a word, but the sounds are used in the wrong places in words (dogdy for doggy) or the sound can be substituted by another (fire becomes pire) or omitted completely (book becomes boo-), he has a phonological disorder. This disorder affects how your child is understood by others (speech intelligibility). A child can have one or more forms at the same time.

If you are noticing delays in your child sound pronunciation or awareness to sounds or any of the mentioned red flags, do not wait! Fill ONESTI’s developmental screening checklist and contact our professionals to learn more about your child’s speech development. ONESTI ‘s team will help use simple strategies and tips, in daily routines to help your child develop his speech skills.

ONESTI will support you and provide you with exercises to be done on a daily basis that will improve your child’s oral motor skills and thus his feeding skills. Fill out ONESTI’s feeding checklist to know more about your child’s skills.