"Everyone says he'll talk when he's ready"
Sometimes that is true. Children vary a great deal and some perfectly typical children are simply late talkers who catch up completely without any help at all.
But "wait and see" is advice that costs nothing to give and can cost a great deal to follow. The years between two and five are when language develops most readily, and they do not come back. If there is a difficulty underneath the delay, those are precisely the years you most wanted to be working in.
An assessment resolves this. If your child is a late talker who will catch up, you will have lost one appointment and gained peace of mind. If there is something to work on, you will have found it while it was easiest to address. The asymmetry is not close.
Delay, disorder, and the difference
A delay means language is developing in the usual order but later than expected. A disorder means it is developing differently: sounds acquired out of sequence, grammar that does not follow the typical pattern, understanding out of step with expression.
The distinction matters because it changes what the therapy does. A delayed child often needs enrichment and time. A child with a disorder needs specific, targeted work on the particular part that is not following the usual route, and general enrichment will not get there on its own.
It also matters because speech difficulty is sometimes a sign of something broader. Speech delay is one of the earliest signs of autism, and it can also indicate hearing loss, a general developmental delay, or a specific language disorder. Sorting out which is going on is the main purpose of the first assessment.
Get hearing checked first
This is the single most useful thing a parent can do before anything else, and it is regularly skipped.
A child who cannot hear clearly cannot learn to speak clearly. Glue ear, which is fluid behind the eardrum after repeated ear infections, is extremely common in young children, frequently goes unnoticed, and causes a fluctuating hearing loss that is more than enough to disrupt speech development at exactly the wrong age.
Children with glue ear often seem to hear perfectly well much of the time, which is precisely why it is missed. Have hearing tested properly. If it is the cause, treating it changes everything and no amount of speech therapy substitutes for it.
What helps at home
Cut the questions. It is a natural instinct to test (what's this, what colour is it, say ball) and it puts a child who is already struggling under pressure to perform. Comment instead of asking. Narrate what your child is doing. Give the words without demanding them back.
Wait longer than feels comfortable. Children who process language slowly need several seconds to respond, and adults almost always fill that gap before they get there. Ask, then count silently to ten.
Get face to face and down to their level, so your child can see your mouth as well as hear you.
Expand rather than correct. If your child says "car go", answer "yes, the car is going!" and they get the correct form modelled without being told they were wrong.
And speak the language you are most fluent in. Practice in a language you speak naturally is far more valuable than stilted practice in one you chose because it seemed more useful. Multilingualism does not cause speech delay and dropping a language does not fix one.
When to seek an assessment
Rough guides, not rules, because children vary. If any of these describe your child, an assessment is worth having. It is not a diagnosis, and only a qualified professional can give one.
- No babbling by around twelve months
- No single words by around sixteen months
- No two-word phrases by around two years
- Loss of speech or social skills the child previously had, at any age
- Speech that family members cannot understand by around three years
- Speech that people outside the family cannot understand by around four years
- Seems not to understand simple instructions
- Does not point, show or gesture to communicate
- Marked frustration when trying to make themselves understood
- A history of repeated ear infections