Child Speech Therapy Services: When To Start?

I wanted to briefly share on this topic, because it is very important, and parents ask this question all of the time, “How can you provide speech therapy services to an infant or young child”.

Speech therapy addresses sound and phonological development, but language treatments help children understand and express words and meaning, and that is what I work on with infants and small children.

Research tells us that children speak their first words by 12 months of age, but there are some very important developmental precursors to consider before a child says their first word.

Here are some developmental milestones that I look evaluate in young children:

3-6 Months: Young children should turn their heads towards the person talking and localize to the sound. Expressively, children this age should be laughing, and babbling and imitating “talking”.

6-9 Months: Children at this age should start recognizing their mommy or daddy’s name, attend to music, wave “bye-bye”, make 2 syllable combinations and attempt to sing and shout to gain attention.

9-12 Months: By this age, the child should attend to new words, give an object upon verbal request, understand a small,simple question, use a word to call a person and start speaking 1 to 2 words spontaneously.

These are just a few language milestones that I look for in small children. More information on developmental milestones can be found here, on the American Speech and Language Association website.

If you are concerned about your child’s speech or language development or would like to know more information about speech therapy services in Tucson, please don’t hesitate to contact me here. We take many insurance plans as payment for our services, so contact me today for Tucson speech therapy services.

About Kyle Meades

John Kyle Meades, CCC-SLP has practiced Speech & Language Pathology since 1993. Therapy Group of Tucson, PLLC provides private, powerful and effective speech, occupational, physical & ABA therapy services in Tucson, AZ

Comments

  1. This is very good advice. It’s important for parents to be proactive and take preventative actions. No one knows our children better than we do.

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