Speech & language difficulties in children can be caused by the following:

• Childhood apraxia of speech
• Articulation and phonological errors
• Hearing loss
• Congenital syndromes and neurological disorders (e.g. Down’s Syndrome, Autism)
• Specific language impairment
• Family history of speech & language problems
• ADD/ADHD
• Dysfluency (stuttering)
• Unknown causes

Some important communication milestones include the following:

2 – 5 months: begins babbling
6-11months: responds to own name, may imitate ‘mama’ and ‘dada’
12 months: starts using single words of well known objects, should understand basic concepts such as ‘no’.
18 months: saying approximately 20 different words, starts producing 2 word phrases
2 years: using up to 50 different words, and starts stringing 3 words together in phrases (e.g. “Baby drink milk”)
3 years: a child’s speech should be 50-75% intelligible, and vocabulary should be developing rapdily at this age. A child should be using 3-4 word utterances
4 years: a child should be using 5-7 word sentences, and speech should be 90% intelligible
5 years: a child should start using 8-9 word sentences with adult-like grammar and speech should be intelligible to strangers
6-7 years: Child should be able to produce all speech sounds correctly, and should understand most concepts.

If you are unsure whether your child’s speech and language development is age appropriate or not, please contact us to speak to one of the Speech Therapists, who will be able to provide you with more information.

Strokes, TBI, neurological conditions, and oral cancers can also affect a person’s ability to swallow in different ways, and often requires assessment and treatmend by a Speech Therapist.

Examples of speech, language and swallowing disorder in adults are:

• Dysarthria (speech production problem due to poor oral-motor control/weakened oral-motor muscles)
• Apraxia (motor-planning disorder)
• Aphasia (a language disorder which can either be expressive or receptive)
• Dysphagia (swallowing difficulties)