If a child at 4 years old does not speak, you need to do something about it. The first thing parents need to find out is the reasons why the baby grows up in silence, and for this you will need to undergo an examination with an otolaryngologist, psychologist, speech therapist, pediatric neurologist and psychotherapist. Today we consider the most common reasons why a child does not speak at 4 years old. Komarovsky is a pediatric doctor who has earned the trust of many parents. It is his advice that we will use to compile the article.
At what age should children talk and what exactly?
Before you start to sound the alarm and complain that a child at 4 years old does not speak well (what to do with this, we will tell you later), you need to figure out what and how old the children say according to the norms. If your four-year-old baby is slurring some words, this is not a cause for concern. To understand exactly if you need help, compare the following data with the development of your child:
- By the year the kids are already very actively communicating, and the monosyllabic "give", "woof", "on" and the like and the repeating syllables "ma-ma", "pa-pa" and so on are replacing the agukany.
- By one and a half years, the deadline is two, the vocabulary is expanding, simple phrases (albeit not clear) appear like "Misha will eat," "let's go for a walk," and so on. If the child still communicates in separate syllables, then this should alert, and you will need to visit a speech therapist in the first place.
- From the age of three, the baby can already describe with simple phrases what is happening, a picture from a book, ask questions.
- The child speaks poorly at 4 years old - this is when he still cannot describe the picture, compile a simple story from it, describe what is happening or any phenomenon, cannot compose complex sentences and still communicates with the simplest phrases.
If the baby speaks well, but rarely, he is most likely just silent. But maybe the problem is psychologically, let's understand why the child does not speak at 4 years old (at all, or speaks, but rarely) or why he speaks poorly. For each reason, solutions to the problem will be proposed.
Lack of attention, communication
If from birth, parents accustom the baby to independence with regard to watching cartoons and pictures, spend little time with him, do not read books, and give simple answers to elementary questions ("yes", "no", "not now", "leave me alone "and so on), then the baby will just get used to such communication. The child will feel more comfortable without pronouncing superfluous, as it seems to him, words, and he won’t have many questions, as the previous monosyllabic answers do not cause an interest in something.
In this case, a child at 4 years old does not speak for a simple reason - he grew up in silence, and all thanks to the "efforts" of his parents. Remember: a quiet child is not the ultimate dream and not an ideal; he will lag behind his peers in development, since he is not interested in anything and does not develop. How to fight?
Start watching cartoons together, comment on them, ask your child questions that he will need to answer with a phrase. Learn songs and poems together, tell him a lot yourself, make sure that the baby starts asking questions. Do not dismiss the child, and soon a real talker will turn out of him.
Individual pace of development
If the backlog is small and your baby’s speech is not much different from that of their peers, then is there anyway to consider that there is a problem? Perhaps a child at 4 years old does not speak exactly the same as the son of a neighbor, because of the individual pace of development.
It happens that parents begin to worry if their child said “mother” a month later than the child of friends. But think, maybe he went before, turned upside down for the first time, and so on. With a slight lag, the baby will nevertheless get on track and catch up with the ability to speak his peers.
How to speed up the process? Usually a child speaks poorly at 4 years old due to a lack of communication with peers, that is, one who does not attend kindergarten. You have only one way out: give your baby to the garden, he will soon take over words and phrases from his classmates, begin to communicate on an equal footing.
If the child attends the garden, but still lags behind in the development of speech, then consult with a neurologist, psychologist, speech therapist. Perhaps there are minor birth or psychological injuries, or maybe the point is the truth in the individual pace of development.
Lack of motivation
If in the first paragraph we talked about the lack of attention from parents, now we will talk about excessive custody. Pampering your baby with your excessive attention, you take away the motivation to express your desires. For example: just got your hands dirty, you're already running with a scarf. If this happens in the garden and no one rushes to help him, then the child will not ask for help, but simply whimper, demanding attention.
So, if a child of 4 years says little and does it only in case of emergency, then motivate him! For example, remove a dish with sweets or fruits from an accessible place. Let the baby not take what is needed, but ask for help from adults. Will point a finger at the dish, do not react, say: "Ask normally, with words." And all in the same vein.
Bilingual family
If the child does not speak at 4 years old, the reason for this may lie precisely in the fact that parents communicate in one or another language, or even completely mix them. Children born in bilingual families simply have a right to lag in the formation of speech. This may lie in a small vocabulary, in errors in the preparation of sentences, in refusing to communicate with complex sentences, in silence. The kid, just to understand what is at stake, you must first separate one language from another, and then think about how to write an answer or appeal.
So, if in a bilingual family a child of 4 does not say what to do? First, take pity on your baby’s brain. If you easily separate one dialect from another, then it either can not do this, or it really "breaks the brain." Only speak one language with him; do not mix words and phrases. Then contact in another language that the baby also needs to learn. For the most part, speak the dialect that will be the main one (the one that is needed in the garden, at school, for communicating with peers), and give less time to the secondary language.
Adverse psychological situation in the family
Stress threatens not only adults, but also a child 4-5 years old. Doesn't the baby speak at all, utter slurred words, stutters? All these are the consequences of stress, psychological trauma, fear. Even simple quarrels between parents can become an unfavorable situation for the development of the child. The kid begins to be afraid of loud noises, he is afraid and say a word, closes in himself. These are alarming signals!
The situation in the house should be, if not fun, then at least calm. Exclude scandals at the child, he should not see it. If the baby is a constant witness to parental quarrels, then he will have constant stress, which will cause a developmental delay, and this is fraught with the future. If a child at 4 years old hardly speaks and the reason for this is the scandals that have already passed, fear for any other reason, and you yourself can’t cope with the situation, that is, one way is to go to a psychologist who specializes in working with children. Isn’t it too early to brainwash at this age? This is one of the most frequently asked questions. The answer is one: it does not happen early, it is too late!
Negative attitude of the child to conversations
And this also happens. Many parents gasp and gasp as soon as they hear a new word, or even a phrase, from their child, and then they annoy the child with requests to say so to their grandmother, grandfather, neighbor, and so on. The desire to "talk" the baby can turn negatively. The child will be tired of repeating the hackneyed phrase to everyone, and each spoken word will only tire him, cause negative associations.
How to proceed? Yes, just stop bothering the child with a request to say so-and-so. After a while, the baby will take a break from importunity and begin to communicate normally, ask questions, answer them, and replenish the vocabulary.
Genetic predisposition
If your child is 4 years old does not speak, then ask your parents when you started talking. The whole thing may be in genetics, and this is the strongest thing. It happens that children do not say for a long time what they are starting to scare their parents with, and then they wholeheartedly give out whole "poems", which they already surprise their parents.
In any case, if there is a lag in speech development for no apparent reason, then it will be necessary to bypass the doctors in order to identify possible neurological or psychological disorders in the early stages. But do not panic, do not force the child to "say something quickly." Thus, you will only make it worse, the baby will begin to shut itself in, and the desire to speak with him will completely disappear.
Severe pregnancy or birth injury
The nervous system of the crumbs is formed in utero. If there were complications during pregnancy, the expectant mother suffered from viral diseases, was constantly in a state of stress, then all this could affect the formation of the nervous system.
Another reason is skull injuries at birth, which caused brain damage. More often this activity is quickly restored, very rarely gives serious failures, and it sometimes happens that for this reason the child lags behind in development, in our case, speech.
For both reasons, failures occur at an earlier age. For example, a child by the middle of the year is still not abominable, does not smile, there is not enough finger and toys, and much more. But if the injury is not severe, then you can find out about its presence at a later age - to four or five years, when the lag in speech will be too obvious.
Activate the speech center in the brain helps exercises to develop fine motor skills. Many believe that all this is nonsense and speech with fingers is in no way connected. But nerve endings are a mysterious thing, and it is precisely the developed fine motor skills that are responsible for the center of speech. Buy educational games for working with your hands: pulling threads through holes, puzzles, and so on. Just let the child go through the pasta, with their eyes closed, by touch to guess how many holes there are in the button, and so on.
Of course, you cannot do without the professional help of a neurologist and speech therapist, but the proposed exercises will greatly help.
Hearing impairment
If the baby does not speak at the age of four or all of his phrases are knocked down, even the simplest words are incomprehensible, then he may have hearing impairment. When a baby does not perceive words well by ear, he cannot reproduce them correctly. And the matter may lie not in complete deafness, which is determined earlier, but in partial, which may not be noticed even by a very attentive parent.
Deafness in a child can be hereditary or acquired: intrauterine infection, complications during pregnancy of a mother, injuries during childbirth, complications after colds in infancy. Here you will need qualified help from an otolaryngologist, neurologist, speech therapist, pediatrician and so on.
While undergoing treatment, do not despair and do not stop learning the baby. Begin to speak more loudly and clearly, engage with the child, speaking phrases together, reading poems, sing songs - all this helps a lot in the development of speech, and poems and songs are easier and easier to hear, even when weakened.
Childhood autism
Autism is not a sentence; it is a feature of a baby who lives in his own inner world. The child does not need outside communication, he is not bad without talking, but quite comfortable in his room with paper and pencils - often autistic children communicate and convey their mood and emotions through drawings, and parents learn to understand them that way. It is parents, grandparents, who play an important role in the development of these special children. But you can not force the baby to communicate, if he does not want this, you will have to come to terms with his mood.
Necessarily children with autism should be observed by a neurologist, psychologist and psychotherapist. Over the years, the baby will be less and less different from peers, but for this, both doctors and parents should try very hard.
Little communication with living people
Does the child not want to talk at age 4? Have you noticed that as you get tired and busy with your child more and more communicates with a tablet, computer, TV and so on? The child is busy with video games, watching TV (on which they do not show anything useful for children now), instead of learning a new verse or song with his mother, going out for a walk to chat and play with other children. If you understand that a lag in speech development or just a child’s refusal to communicate was the result of hard work on gadgets, then it's time to change something, isn't it?
Take away all computers, phones, turn off the TV and take care of your child yourself. Tell tales, and then ask them to retell what they heard, learn poems for children of your age, come up with fun games and activities in which you will need to communicate. The first time will be difficult, because the baby will miss his favorite tablet so much (tantrums against this background and refusal from other activities are possible), but all this is only temporary difficulties. From the gadget, as from a drug, soon everyone weaned and began to be interested in "live" entertainment.
How to teach a child to speak at 4 years old?
The main thing is that you notice a problem, admit mistakes and begin to correct the situation. First of all, you need to contact a speech therapist and a child psychologist. It will be necessary to visit these specialists steadily as the problem is resolved. But at home you should deal with the baby so that he quickly starts to normally communicate for his age:
- If it is a lack of communication, then urgently change relationships in the family. Become more interested in the affairs of the child, ask how things are in the kindergarten, what they went through, what they were told, what they dreamed at night and so on. Provoke the child with questions, and the matter will go wrong.
- Read, learn tongue twisters, poems, go on excursions, to the zoo, but just to the park!
- Cook lunches and dinners together, while you need to communicate. For example: "We will cook today ..." - the child must continue. "For this we will need ..." - the baby must list the products that will be required in the cooking process.
- Create verses yourself. You say a phrase or a word, and let the child think up a word in rhyme.
There are a lot of exercises to accelerate the development of speech, and you will have to work hard so that the baby soon begins to fully communicate with you!