Dr. Komarovsky on what to do if a child does not speak at 3 years old

When a child turns three and isn’t talking as much as other children, it’s normal for parents to get concerned. If your child still doesn’t talk much, you may be worried and unsure of what to do. Renowned pediatrician Dr. Komarovsky provides some useful guidance on this subject to help allay your concerns and help you navigate this developmental stage of your child.

Every child develops at their own rate, and speech delays can occasionally be a typical aspect of growing up, according to Dr. Komarovsky. But it’s crucial to know what could be causing the delay and how to provide your child with the best possible support. His method consists of easy-to-implement actions that parents can do to promote speech development and make sure there are no underlying problems.

This post will discuss Dr. Komarovsky’s suggestions for dealing with a three-year-old who is not yet able to speak clearly. You can gain a better understanding of potential issues and how to support your child’s communication skills by heeding his advice.

Advice	Description
Assess Hearing	Ensure the child can hear properly. Hearing issues can affect speech development.
Encourage Communication	Talk to your child often, read books together, and encourage them to express themselves through gestures or sounds.
Consult a Specialist	If there are concerns, seek advice from a pediatrician or speech therapist for a professional evaluation.
Be Patient	Children develop at their own pace. Avoid comparing your child to others and provide a supportive environment.

Speech development

The child won’t speak if he doesn’t learn to speak. The exact moment when meaningful speech starts is a very personal judgment. Before turning one year old, some kids go from learning syllables to trying to pronounce words, while others don’t start until they are two years old.

There are average statistical periods, and you can suspect your child may be experiencing a delay in speech development if they fall too much behind:

• At 3 months, babies start cooing;
• At 6-8 months, they can babble;
• Girls usually pronounce their first word by 10 months. Boys do this closer to 12 months.
• At 1.5 years, a child is quite capable of pronouncing about a dozen words.
• By the age of two, he usually knows pronouns, and the number of words in his vocabulary normally increases rapidly.
• By the age of three, a healthy, developed child can pronounce about 350 words without any problems, freely operate them, inflect, and express his emotions.
• At 4 years, a child"s vocabulary is already more than one and a half thousand words;
• At the age of five, the vocabulary doubles, the child knows and pronounces more than 3000 words.

Talking a lot to the child will help you develop speech skills because it is impossible to have speaking skills without listening skills.

Experts suggest beginning during pregnancy since it is advantageous for both parties for a mother to talk with her future child. The fetus already has perfect auditory perception in the later stages of pregnancy.

After the baby is born, there should be constant communication. He has to hear human speech as much as possible, even if he doesn’t comprehend a word you say.

Babies up to six months old should pay close attention to their parents’ articulatory systems because at this age, they start to understand the relationship between sound and lip movement. Even the baby tries to mimic what he hears. It coos at first, then babbles.

Babies acquire speech with pleasure and experience a nearly daily increase in vocabulary with the patience of their parents and frequent classes that focus on the repetition of new words and their association with images.

If the baby is developing normally, he should have passive speech by the time he is two years old, even if he is not in a rush to speak on his own. You can ask a toddler like this to do two tasks in a row: pick up an object and pass it to a family member.

Even non-verbal children should typically be able to construct a sequence of three consecutive actions by the age of three by comprehending passive speech.

But that’s just a theory. In reality, things are not always as they seem, and parents may start to worry and ask the doctor why their child’s speech development is taking longer than expected.

Speech delay

According to Evgeny Komarovsky, it is too soon to worry if a child is between one and two years old and nonverbal.

Three years old is the age at which you should seriously consider the absence of speech. Simultaneously, parents ought to articulate to their physician and to themselves precisely why the baby is silent—that is, why he does not speak or comprehend adults but comprehends everything.

Babies frequently talk, but adults find it difficult to understand them because they mumble things that are difficult to understand, don’t learn the names of objects, and refer to them in ways that are exclusive to their own language.

In the video below, Dr. Komarovsky provides guidance on what to do if the child is nonverbal.

Three-year-olds can speak occasionally, but they are limited to using single words that they are unable to combine into sentences or even longer expressions.

You can start looking for the reasons behind the baby’s silence once mom and dad have done their best to fully explain the core of the issue.

Physicians define a speech delay as a condition in which a child cannot speak coherently by the time they are three years old. Though it is not as notable, the presence of phrasal speech at this age is also regarded as a departure from the norm.

Medical data indicates that 7–10% of three-year-old children have speech delays, and boys are far more likely than girls to be silent—for every non-speaking girl, there are four silent boys.

Dr. Komarovsky stresses that parents need to be proactive and remain calm if their three-year-old child isn’t speaking. He says that reading aloud, having frequent, interactive conversations, and creating an environment that is rich in language can all significantly aid in a child’s speech development. It is advised to speak with a pediatrician or speech therapist if worries continue in order to rule out any underlying conditions and to receive customized advice.

Reasons for silence

Hearing issues are the most fundamental and frequent cause of a three-year-old child’s inability to speak. They may be acquired or congenital.

Deafness can result from a small or large loss of hearing. It is best to show the infant to an otolaryngologist. He will check the baby’s ability to perceive sounds and perform a visual examination of the hearing organs.

A tonal audiometry procedure, which provides an extremely accurate indication of hearing quality, will be recommended if necessary.

In the event that no hearing issues are discovered, the parents will need to see a pediatric neurologist. The speech center is affected by certain neurological disorders, so the doctor needs to determine whether the infant has these pathologies. To rule out the possibility of tumors or abnormalities in the structure of the brain, you will most likely need to have an MRI.

Although Komarovsky maintains that brain disorders and anomalies are extremely unlikely to be the reason for speech delay, this possibility cannot be totally ruled out.

Congenital dumbness, which is based on damage to the speech apparatus, is an incredibly rare phenomenon in people with normal hearing.

If the baby is evaluated by experts and they are all in agreement that the child is perfectly healthy, then there may be educational and psychological reasons for the silence.

Occasionally, a baby who has experienced extreme stress, fear, or fright may not speak. A parent’s incorrect educational approach is often the cause of a child’s silence: if a parent spends more evenings communicating virtually with friends on the Internet than with their child, who is hanging around, then the baby simply has nowhere to acquire the necessary speech communication skills. You can speak with a child psychologist or psychiatrist about these issues.

Bilingual children, or those raised in bilingual households, frequently experience speech difficulties by the time they are three years old.

Mental illness, typically of an innate nature (such as autism and t. D.), can occasionally be the cause of nonverbal communication. Ten percent of cases of delayed speech development at three years old have an unidentified true cause.

Evgeny Komarovsky recommends visiting a neurologist and speech therapist if a three-year-old child speaks individual syllables but is unable to combine them into words, or speaks individual words but is unable to construct phrases and sentences.

Additionally, the baby must have a mandatory consultation with a speech therapist if he comprehends everything but responds with entirely unintelligible sets of sounds while retaining the intonations of normal speech.

Dangerous age

The most intensive stages of speech formation occur during a few age ranges, and any unfavorable factors can accelerate or slow down these processes:

• 6 months. If at this age the child has little communication, then he does not develop the need to speak, imitate sounds, babble.
• 1-2 years. At this age, the cortical speech zones are actively developing. Severe stress, frequent illnesses, lack of communication, injuries can lead to a slowdown in cortical metamorphoses.
• 3 years. At this age, coherent speech is formed. Exogenous factors can slow down this process.
• 6-7 years. Under the influence of negative factors at this age, the child is unlikely to become completely silent, but speech disorders (stuttering) are quite possible.

How to teach to speak

Komarovsky suggests addressing the elimination of organic causes, such as hearing disorders, neurological abnormalities, pathologies of the speech apparatus or speech center of the brain, if the delay in speech development is the cause.

A suitable course of treatment should be recommended for the child based on the diagnosis. The doctor will undoubtedly offer suggestions for holding speech development classes concurrently with this.

Eliminating the obstacles preventing the child from verbally expressing his thoughts is also necessary if social, educational, or psychological issues are the cause of the child’s silence.

In this video, Dr. Komarovsky explains how to support your child’s speech development.

According to Yevgeny Komarovsky, there are situations when enrolling a three-year-old in kindergarten despite having a severe communication impairment in the family is sufficient. Many boys and girls pick up language far more quickly in a children’s group than they do when they are with adults.

In the absence of illnesses that resulted in silence, parents who choose to help their three-year-old child acquire speech must independently get ready for a labor-intensive and slow process. If there is a child psychologist or child psychotherapist in your city, they can assist them with this. 70% of success is concealed in parents’ hard work and perseverance.

Psychologist"s advice

Think of your child as an individual, equally important and significant as all the adults in your family. Speak with him, go over both serious and mundane matters (such as what to make for supper or where to take a weekend stroll). d.). Even if the child doesn’t respond right away, he will start to develop a helpful habit of speaking. Simultaneously, internal speech development and a deeper comprehension of passive speech will commence.

Parents who overprotect their children may make them less inclined to communicate. When a mother inquires about her baby’s preferred apple color—red or green—and responds, "Red, because it tastes better," the child is deprived of the chance to formulate an answer on their own.

If these circumstances are frequently encountered, the infant develops the habit of remaining silent. Should your circumstances recur, adjust your perspective towards the child and release him from undue concern.

Cooing and babbling are not things you should encourage. The child will not develop the proper speech function if the mother follows the baby and starts calling objects in his own language, using a lot of diminutive suffixes (machine, porridge, daddy, son, etc.).

Pronouncing words with these suffixes is considerably more challenging. Address your infant as though he were an adult. He will find it enjoyable and beneficial.

Play some music for your young one. Songs, classical music, and onomatopoeic refrains all improve perception of speech, sounds, and the outside world.

Any idle time can be spent on something. Utilize each hour you spend with your child. Talk to him about everything that occurs on the street while you’re on your way to the pharmacy or store: a dog is strolling; it’s small, sweet, and lovely; a car is driving; it’s red and large.

A mother can name kitchen tools aloud, such as a spoon or saucepan, and can also demonstrate products, such as apples, carrots, cabbage, and nuts, to her child while cooking.

When there are multiple children in a family, the younger ones typically exhibit speech development issues. Since speaking with adults is thought to be the best way for children to develop their speech, psychologists think that this is the result of children communicating with other children on a regular basis.

Younger children from large families frequently lack the motivation to speak appropriately and loudly enough.

Ask questions more frequently to your child. Do not cease asking questions even if the person is unable to respond. Your child will undoubtedly respond at some point.

Doctor"s advice

• Dr. Komarovsky emphasizes that if a child does not speak more or less coherently at 3 years old, this is a clear reason to see a doctor.
• When assessing the speech abilities of their child, parents should take into account not only how much and what he or she is saying at the moment, but also monitor the dynamics of speech: if a child says a certain number of words at 2 and 3 years old, and his or her vocabulary practically does not increase, Komarovsky calls this a dangerous trend.
• If at three years old a child lags behind the standards and knows only a dozen or two words, in a couple of months the vocabulary increases by another dozen new words, this is normal. Although the baby is lagging behind according to the norms, but in his personal development he has positive dynamics.
• A child with a speech delay should not be given gadgets for a long time.
• Instead of computer games and watching cartoons for a long time, arrange a joint walk, play with your child, read him a book.
• No need to compare your child with other children. Your child is a unique person, there is no other like him, so any comparisons are inappropriate.

When it comes to parents who are worried about their child’s speech development, Dr. Komarovsky provides insightful advice. It is crucial to keep in mind that every child develops at a different pace if your three-year-old isn’t speaking as you would expect. Early intervention, though, can have a big impact.

Dr. Komarovsky stresses the importance of tolerance and comprehension. Talking about their day or reading aloud to them can be interactive activities that promote language development in your child. The establishment of a nurturing atmosphere that encourages communication is also advantageous.

If worries continue, getting expert counsel from a pediatrician or speech therapist can offer tailored direction. They are able to evaluate your child’s growth and suggest suitable tactics to encourage the development of their speech.

In conclusion, even though it’s normal to be concerned if your three-year-old child isn’t talking, you can help ensure they receive the support they require by acting pro-actively and by heeding Dr. Komarovsky’s advice. Most kids will catch up and excel in their communication skills with the correct strategy and prompt intervention.

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