Late Talker

So while flipping through an issue of "Westchester Family" the other day -- preparing for our eventual move to the 'burbs (gasp!) -- I saw an ad page that caught my eye. Entitled "5 Myths Every Parent of a Late Talker Needs to Know the Truth About", it was written by a speech therapist who was advocating her services (Isa Marrs, if anyone in Westchester is interested). While I'm no specialist and have no familiarity with speech development issues, and while the argument could be made that Marrs is scaring parents into using her services, I thought the information in this ad was important enough at least to share with any mama out there who might be concerned that her little one may be lagging behind speech-wise.

The 5 myths are as follows:

1. He's not talking because you don't make him.
2. She's not talking because her older sibling talks for her.
3. He's not talking because he's lazy.
4. He's not talking because boys develop later.
5. Don't worry; she'll grow out of it!

Marrs shoots down the first three by claiming that, no matter what, a child will talk if s/he can. But it's her response to #4 that I found really interesting: apparently, gender accounts for no more than 3% of the difference. Regardless of gender, your child should be using at least 10 words by 18-20 months and no fewer than 50 words by 21-30 months. If your child misses either of those milestones, have him/her evaluated.

And, lastly, apparently 1 out of 4 will not grow out of it. The longer it takes a child to start talking, the more likely s/he will have other difficulties. "To put it another way," she writes, "late talking is often an indicator that something else is wrong."

I am obviously not in the business of assessing childhood developmental problems, but I thought I'd pass on some information that I personally found useful. (After all, who knows what surprises Kid #2 will hold for me?)