Speech, language and communication is the essence of our life. It is very important aspect of every human being’s overall development as well.
Speech and language therapy helps you to deal with all problems and challenges you/ your child is facing with speech, language and
and communication. As children improve their speech and communication, they are better able to express their needs, share their thoughts and interact with others. Adults facing any kind of talking/ communication issues, gain their confidence and overcome the challenges with the help of speech therapy.
A typical child follows a sequence of speech and language developmental stages. Any alteration in this sequence due to limited exposure or any other associated condition would result in speech and language developmental delay.
Due to speech and language delay, children do not achieve age appropriate milestones in comprehension (understanding) of language and expression (talking). It affects normal development of child. Children may lag behind than their peers. It can affect
academics and family dynamics as well.
Speech therapy effectively helps you to overcome the delay, expand child’s receptive and expressive vocabulary and improve communication skills.
Remember, “EARLY IDENTIFICATION IS THE KEY OF SUCCESSFUL REHABILITATION”. Child starts using adult like language step by step. Above mentioned normal developmental stages can be overlapping. They can vary to a lesser extent. However, there should not be a delay of more than 6 months in achievement of these normal developmental stages.
Check out normal speech and language developmental stages of Indian children as per various research papers
Speech and Language Developmental Milestones in Indian children
Autism or Autism Spectrum Disorders (ASD) comprises of a wide range of conditions mainly characterized by challenges with social skills/ appropriate use of language in society (pragmatics), delayed or deviant speech and language development, non verbal communication, repetitive behaviours and sensory issues.
Speech therapy helps you to improve language abilities, social interaction and communication.
Children with cerebral palsy can have difficulty in muscle control, weakness in oro motor muscles, delayed language, swallowing issues.
Speech therapy can help improve communication, eating and swallowing. It can encourage confidence, learning and socialization.
Formerly known as Mental Retardation. It is characterized by significant limitations in both intellectual functioning and adaptive behaviour. Speech and language development is delayed, speech clarity can be poor which makes it difficult to understand individual’s speech.
Speech therapy can be very beneficial to overcome these issues.
If child has hearing loss, he/she does not get enough exposure to ‘hearing and talking world’. It results into speech and language delay. After fitting of hearing aid/ cochlear implant, child does not start listening and speaking automatically. He/she needs intensive speech and language therapy and auditory training to overcome the delay.
Children with cleft lip and palate have lots of articulation (pronunciation) errors, affected speech clarity and voice resonance issues. These issues persist after surgery as well.
Speech therapy proves to be helpful to achieve better speech and language skills. It may help to reduce nasal speech quality.
Commonly known as “totlapan”. Some children are not able to articulate/ pronounce certain sounds. Articulation disorders affect speech clarity and makes it difficult for other persons to understand child’s speech.
Speech therapy helps you to improve your articulation stepwise makes your communication effective.
“Meri aavaj hi pehchaan hai!!!” Every individual has unique voice. However, voice misuse, voice abuse may result in breathy, hoarse and harsh voice. Few male adults have high pitched female like voice (Puberphonia). Voice disorders can affect your social and personal life. It has a huge impact on professional life in cases of professional voice users like singers, voice over artists, actors, public speakers, teachers, sales persons etc. Voice therapy enables you to rediscover and maintain your precious voice. Voice therapy can also be helpful if you want to pursue your career in a field where your voice is required extensively.
Many children as well as adults have stammering/ stuttering which is a huge obstacle in effective communication. It is a fluency disorder causing disrupted flow of speech by involuntary repetitions, prolongations, interjections and blocks.
A person having stuttering faces confidence issues, vicious cycle of avoiding and escaping social encounters. It can affect academics and performance at work places.
(Associated with Stroke, Brain Injury, Parkison’s disease etc)Aphasia: Inability to use language correctly. May talk gibberish, irrelevant or repetitive utterances. May forget words and their meanings.
Dysarthria:
Inability to speak. Weakness in facial muscles and muscles of oral cavity.
Dementia:
Gradual memory loss. May be associated with cognitive issues.
Dysphagia:
Difficulty in swallowing.
All these neurological conditions restricts individual’s ability to communicate. Swallowing disorders affect your nutrition and physical health. Affects social life and family dynamics as well.
Speech therapy helps you overcome all the restrictions and improve individual’s quality of life.
Now online speech therapy is the need of the hour. Since last 1 ½ year many children as well as adults have preferred online speech therapy sessions and has shown effective results. Many of them have come far from where they were last year. Children who were at one word level have achieved a sentence level. It’s amazing how technology has opened new horizons. When the pandemic started, parents were worried that what if my child regresses because of hampered therapy? What if his/her achieved speech and language skills go away and we get to level 0 again?? But online therapy has done wonders!!! It literally opened new doors. Children were very comfortable in their home environment, using their own toys, getting quality time with parents. Parents also learned new things, invented new activities and ‘Structured Language Stimulation’ is at its best this way!
Speech and Language Developmental Milestones in Indian children
0-3 months
Starts responding to you by vocalizing “/a/”, “/u/”, “/i/”
4-6 months
Starts babbling “baba”, “dada”, “gaga” etc
9-11 months
Child responds to simple ‘where’ question e.g. “where is mom?”, “where is ball?” by pointing at that person or object.
Pays attention towards you when you call out his/her name
9-12 months
Says first meaningful word.
12-14 months
Understand simple questions like “ how do you brush your teeth?” and responds to you by imitating the action of brushing his/ her teeth.
15-17 months
Start understanding and answering simple questions in one word. E.g. “what is this?- doll, bikki (biscuit)”, “who is this?- mom, didi, dad”etc.
Start understanding bidirectional commands (2 separate commands given simultaneously). E.g. “put this on the table and give me a pen”.
Start recognizing and naming colours
Start using “here-there” while expressing themselves. E.g. “mumma is here”, “put it there”
Start understanding simple descriptive story.
Start using simple prepositions while expressing. E.g. “up”, “down”, “in”, “behind”.
Start using ‘please’ and ‘thank you’.
31-36 months
Start using tenses correctly in sentences while expressing. E.g. “I am going to the school” and “ I went to the school”.
Start trying to describe a picture or narrating a story based on it
Start using singular and plural. “I want one chocolate” and “I want three chocolates”.
Understand “why” questions based on reasoning. E.g. “why did you break it?”, “why is your knee hurting?”.
In this way, child starts using adult like language step by step. Above mentioned normal developmental stages can be overlapping. They can vary to a lesser extent. However, there should not be a delay of more than 6 months in achievement of these normal developmental stages.
We urge all mothers and families to be vigilant about your child’s development. Speech and Language development is rapid till 3 years. If you observe that your child is lagging behind in talking or he/she has not achieved above mentioned milestones within time, then immediately seek help of a “speech language pathologist”. As mentioned earlier, “EARLY INTERVENTION IS THE KEY OF SUCCESSFUL REHABILITATION”.
Benefits of teletherapy/ online speech therapy
1.Increase your safety
2.Cost effective (beneficial as speech therapy is a long term process)
3.Eliminate commuting hassle. Excessive travelling may cause fatigue.
4.Enjoy flexible schedule- beneficial for working parents’, young working mothers, other working family members.
5.Least disruption in your work schedule.
6.Can be accessed from anywhere- home/ office/ school.
7.Comfortable home environment for kids
8.Increased consistency and regularity- regular follow up maintained even in situations like bad weather, health issue of parents, travelling to another place.
9.Technology is engaging for kids
10.Reduced chances of regression
11.Opportunity to receive services that previously were not available due to distance from health care facilities; lack of clinicians or specialized clinicians in a geographic area; and lack of transportation.
12.Easy access to required speech and audiology intervention for patients who are home bound due to reduced mobility.
13.No disruption in parents’, young working mothers’ work schedule.
14.Parents can learn many new things which helps kids in generalization of learned speech and language skills in day to day environment.
15.Parents can witness each and every small development in their child which is not possible during in person therapy always as in many clinics, parents are not allowed inside therapy room.
