|
AAP News Vol. 15 No. 5 May 1999, p. 2 © 1999 American Academy of Pediatrics
May is dedicated to raising awareness of hearing, speech and language disorders. The following articles offer advice to pediatricians who see patients with speech or hearing problems. Pediatricians should not take a "wait-and-see" approach with children who haven't reached language development milestones, according to an article on evaluating children with delayed speech. Instead, physicians must learn how to spot potential problems and make appropriate referrals. The authors review how language develops and when children should reach developmental milestones. Infants, for example, should be babbling by 4 to 9 months of age and saying single words by 10 to 16 months. By 2 years, toddlers should be able to answer questions like "who did that?" Three-year-olds should be understood by unfamiliar people, while 5- to 7-yearolds should use all speech sounds and complex sentence forms.
|