Most late-talking toddlers turn out ok
A new study from Perth's The Kids for Child Health Research has shown that late-talking toddlers are no more likely to experience behavioural and emotional difficulties during childhood and adolescence than children who have normal language development.
The study is the first of its kind to track language delay from two years of age through to late adolescence, using data collected from the long running Raine Study.
The results have been published in the August edition of the prestigious international journal Pediatrics.
Study leader Associate Professor Andrew Whitehouse said that while late-talkers have increased levels of behavioural and emotional problems at two years of age, these problems tend not to continue.
"We assessed the children at two years of age and at several time-points up to 17 years and found that while the late-talkers had increased levels of psychosocial problems at age two, they were at no more risk for these problems at later ages," said Dr Whitehouse.
"We suggest that the behavioural and emotional problems identified at two years are due to the psychosocial difficulties of not being able to communicate, such as frustration.
"However, when the late-talking children 'catch-up' to normal language milestones - which is the case for the majority of children by school-age - the behavioural and emotional problems are no longer apparent."
The study examined 1387 children from the Raine study, with 1245 children achieving 'normal' language by two years of age and 142 classed as late-talkers (9.9%). The analysis was drawn from a parent-completed Language Development Survey at two years of age and the Child Behaviour Checklist completed at 2, 5, 8, 10, 14 and 17 years of age.
Dr Whitehouse said the results offer reassurance to parents of late-talkers that their language delay is not in itself a risk factor for later behavioural and emotional problems.
"Having a child who is not talking as much as other children can be very distressing for parents. Our findings suggest that parents should not be overly concerned that their late-talking toddler will have language and psychological difficulties later in childhood," said Dr Whitehouse.
"There is good evidence that most late-talking children will 'catch-up' to the language skills of other children. The best thing that parents can do is provide a rich language-learning environment for their children. This means getting down on the floor and playing their child, talking with them, reading to them, interacting with them at their level."
However, Dr Whitehouse does warn that language problems do persist to the school-age years in a minority of children.
"We have good evidence that if language problems persist to the school-aged years, then these children are at increased risk of behavioural difficulties and appropriate help should be sought," Dr Whitehouse said.
The next research goal for Dr Whitehouse and his team is to find a way to identify as early as possible the minority of late-talkers who do not 'catch-up' and might continue to have life-long language difficulties. The earlier the intervention for these children, the better the outcome.
By two years of age, children will usually have a vocabulary of around 50 words and have begun combining those words in two or three word sentences.
Citation: Whitehouse AJO, Robinson M, Zubrick SR (in press). Late-talking and risk for behavioural and emotional problems during childhood and adolescence. Pediatrics. 2011 Aug;128(2):e324-32. Epub 2011 Jul 4.
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