Language development disorder in children

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A language development disorder (SES) is often not recognized in time. If a child starts speaking much later than their peers, this can be a clue. But there are other signs that indicate problems with language development. Read here what these are, what the causes could be and how language disorders can be diagnosed and treated!

Language development disorder: description

Disturbed language development in children can be assumed if the normal milestones in language development are not reached and age-appropriate language skills are delayed by at least six months.

The information on the frequency of language development disorders varies. Studies assume that about 7 percent of 5-year-olds in Germany suffer from a language development disorder. Boys are three times as likely to be affected as girls. Children from educationally disadvantaged backgrounds are also more likely to be affected.

Language development disorder: characteristics

Characteristics of language development disorder in children vary by age.

Baby age

A language development disorder is hardly noticeable in infancy. Only sometimes do impairments show up in this preverbal development phase. Most babies can communicate quite well without words, so the so-called non-verbal intelligence is often inconspicuous.

Toddlers

Only when a toddler starts speaking much later than their peers can this be interpreted as the first obvious characteristic of a speech development disorder. Doctors also speak of a delay in speech development up to the third birthday. In kindergarten, these children usually leave out important parts of sentences or build sentences in the wrong order. The verb often ends up at the end of a sentence.

School children

If a language development disorder in children remains undetected until the start of school, then everything seems to be okay with the language in everyday school life at first glance. The children have learned to skilfully avoid the problem by using short, mostly grammatically correct sentences. But even with somewhat more complicated written tasks, the language development disorder reveals itself: Understanding of language and grammar (dysgrammatism), word finding and vocabulary are severely limited.

Signs of language development disorder

Signs of a language development disorder are:

Language begins later, language acquisition is slow: reduced babbling (dyslalia), first words only with two and two-word constructions only from three
Years
Low vocabulary: Well under 50 words at two years of age
Limited speech understanding: As a rule, the affected children understand better than they can speak themselves
Limited communication skills

Often children with language problems also have deficits in their motor skills (fine and gross motor skills). Sometimes other problems develop as a result of the speech development disorder, such as motor coordination disorder, attention disorder or behavior disorder.

Language development disorder: causes

Physical illnesses can also result in a language development disorder. If this is not the case, genetic factors play a major role in language acquisition. Due to familial accumulation, genetics are considered to be the main component for language development disorders. Obviously, environmental factors, social isolation (Kasper-Hauser syndrome) or early childhood brain damage have less of an impact.

The causes of a speech development disorder are not always immediately obvious. In addition to physical impairments, such as impaired hearing, an initial delay in speech development can also have completely different reasons. Sometimes gestures are enough for the child to be understood because older siblings or parents react immediately. There is simply no need to speak.

It must therefore first be clarified whether the language development disorder is based on another disease (secondary language development disorder) or whether it occurs alone, i.e. in isolation (specific language development disorder).

Secondary language development disorders

In children, a language development disorder can develop as a result of the following diseases:

Blindness or impaired vision
Hearing impairment
Motor disorders in the mouth and face (orofacial)
Damage to the organs of speech (dysglossia)
Intellectual disabilities, intellectual disabilities (Down or Williams-Beuren syndrome)
Auditory processing and perception disorder
Pervasive developmental disorder (autism)
Neurological damage (aphasia) from epilepsy or traumatic brain injury

Specific language development disorders

Your child hears great, is intelligent and everything is fine physically / neurologically - but they still do not speak appropriately for their age? Then it is likely a specific language development disorder:

Articulation disorder: sounds are pronounced incorrectly or incorrectly connected, sibilants, limited communication due to poor quality
Comprehensibility
Expressive language disorder: active vocabulary is reduced, poor language expression, but language understanding is normal
Receptive language disorder: impaired speech understanding, word meanings are unknown

In the case of receptive language disorders in particular, there is often a mixed form in which expression (expressive language) and articulation are also impaired.

Language development disorder: diagnosis

First of all, it must be confirmed with targeted examination methods that there are no hearing or visual impairments, no intellectual disabilities or intellectual disabilities, no neurological damage or unfavorable environmental conditions (exclusion diagnosis).

Then the specific language development disorder can be assessed with language diagnostics. Depending on the age, various tests are available for this, which can take up to an hour to complete. Some of these tests are also used in the recommended preventive examinations U6 to U9. If there are abnormalities here, the doctor can determine the focus of therapy based on the existing deficits.

Speech development disorder: therapy

If a specialist examination has shown that language development is impaired or delayed, treatment must definitely be started. This is the only way to avoid serious effects on further development.

Speech therapy is the main pillar in the therapy of speech development disorders. In the case of children, the parents make a significant contribution to the success of the therapy. For this reason, parents should also receive instructions for speech therapy and be included in the therapy. Perception, language comprehension, pronunciation, but also reading and writing or communication skills are trained.

In the sessions, which take place one to three times a week, the children are given special exercises that are adapted to their personal circumstances. The child should then practice this on a daily basis in the presence of the parents outside of the sessions.

Depending on the accompanying problems, it is helpful to use the following therapies for children with a speech development disorder:

Physiomotor therapy for motor coordination disorders
Occupational therapy for attention deficit
Psychotherapy for emotional behavior disorder

Language development disorder: bilingual is not a problem!

Healthy children can easily learn several languages at the same time. The prerequisite is that there is intensive communication with the child in both languages. However, if there is a language development disorder, a child will find it equally difficult to use both languages (half-lingual, semilingualism). The statement that children who grow up bilingually speak later or develop language development disorders more often is not true.

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