If your child has been slow in speech development, you may be wondering What To Expect If Your Toddlers Speech Delay Continues Into Preschool. While speech delays are common, they are not necessarily an indicator of a larger issue. Many children progress at different levels in their own time. There are some great things to think about and acknowledge, but also some helpful hints for dealing with and adjusting to speech delays in preschool aged children.
What Other Issues Can I Expect When Dealing with a Speech Delay?
What To Expect If Your Toddlers Speech Delay Continues Into Preschool
Potential for developmental testing. Depending on the level of speech delay, your preschool may recommend developmental testing. If your doctor has not already expressed concern, teachers will often pick up on signs that there could be a real issue that you wouldn’t recognize easily yourself. Testing is not a bad thing at all. It can both find problems, as well as eliminate them. Testing is a great way to learn how to properly help your child with their speech delay issues.
Autism as a diagnosis. Autism is not a death sentence. It is also not always a diagnosis when there is a level of speech delay. However, you will likely hear the term thrown around a bit if developmental testing is recommended. Don’t let this panic you at all. Those individuals who are non verbal autistics, or delayed verbally due to autism function great in society and often have great success overcoming this particular delay issue. If doctors or teachers say the word autism in regards to your toddler or preschooler due to speech delay, don’t panic.
Hearing impairment as a diagnosis. Various hearing issues can often be the reason behind speech delays. Whether it is a permanent hearing issue, or a temporary easy to fix problem, checking this out is imperative. Don’t mess with potential ear damage or hearing issues. Make sure this is on the top of your list as a parent to have checked. Sometimes younger children aren’t able to do proper hearing tests until a bit older. In the meantime, make sure their doctor is checking everything possible regarding their hearing and ear function to be on the safe side.
Does a Toddler Speech Delay Equal A Hearing Problem?
Adjusted education resources. Some kids simply take longer to develop speech patterns than others. It can be caused due to slow learning processes, or as a result of stubbornness when other communication forms are easier to use. Work with your preschool on adjusting their educational methods to help focus on your toddler turned preschoolers speech needs. Repetition in the classroom, or a tutor of sorts to help with their speech process can be very beneficial.
Preschool bullying potential. You have to face the fact that a severe speech delay can eventually cause some bullying to happen. While younger children tend to be less likely to bully each other over such differences, be prepared for the phone call from the teacher or the tears from your child. Address these issues directly with the school, but if problems persist demand changes be made or reach out to the other parents for help.
Just because your toddlers speech delay continues into preschool doesn’t mean they won’t ever catch up to their peers. Every child learns and develops at their own rate. While there are basic standards of development, that doesn’t mean that everything has to fall exactly into place. Be patient, loving and proactive to help them become the best they can be.
I have two children who went through speech delays. Thankfully Missouri has an awesome early intervention program and they were both caught up before Kindergarten. This is a great post! I will share this along.
This is really great info! Thank you! I’m going to pass it along to a few friends.
Really great information! Thank you for sharing! I know a few children that grew out of their speech delay.
It’s hard to watch a child struggle with a speech delay. It’s pretty common though and many grow out of it.
My son had a speech delay. It took years of therapy. He is now 20 and has no issues.
I love this post. My son is 3 years old and is behind in his speech compared to other 3 year olds. I think a lot of it has to do with him being home with me rather than in preschool or daycare, so he’s not around other children as much. He is also an only child right now. However, he gets better with his speech every day and I’m confident he will be perfectly fine.
My preschooler has speech issues also, finally figured out why. Definitely try to catch it early.
I know a couple of toddlers in PreK who have speech issues and it is just something they work on. This is some great info. Thanks for sharing.
My middle child had a speech issue during preschool and a year of coming into the school strictly for speech therapy once a week totally resolved her difficulties. On another note, my younger child was diagnosed with (high functioning) autism and never had a speech delay. I feel that early intervention is key regardless of the reasons behind the problem.
I wouldn’t have known about this! It’s good to know that there are steps no matter what the cause of the delay is.
We actually were excited to have preschool help us force the Doctor to allow us to do developmental testing with my daughter. We knew there was an issue with her speech delays but He didn’t want to push it because he said, “well we don’t see issues as often in girls so I don’t want to send her to get tested. It’s probably nothing” but after 3 years of nothing helping we pushed the issue and FINALLY got the testing done. And we found out there WERE more issues than just having trouble speaking. It was actually an answer to prayers that we discovered the issues because then we could change the therapies and get her into special Speech therapy at school to help with her delays. Without the testing it wouldn’t have happened.
Great information. I really worry that my 20 month old grandson has this although he hasn’t been diagnosed.
Great post! My twins were ‘diagnosed’ in preschool and by then it was hard to get the resources they needed. Parents need to push for this early in life, which is sometimes the biggest struggle.
My neighbor was worrying about this the other day. Such a useful piece of advice
I know someone who’s child had a speech delay. Eventually, they got him on the right track, but he ended up diagnosed with several things before they figured it out.
This is really great information. I never knew that a speech delay could result in so many misdiagnoses.