Author: Nika Wakeham
So you survived pregnancy, childbirth, breastfeeding and the first year, and it seems: well, finally, it will soon speak, and complete happiness will come.
I must admit that at the age of 20, when I was thinking about motherhood, I saw an active, curious, immediately three-year-old child, constantly chatting and asking constantly a million questions. I would be able to spend hours with him intelligent conversations on the subject of spaceships plowing the expanses of the universe.
The first two years, to be honest, I was very stressed out. At first I didn’t succeed with the potty training (see how to teach a pot), moreover, I, as the most decent mother, tried to do this many times, regularly, almost every five months. But I will talk about this later and in detail, because it is an interesting look and experience that is worth special attention.
The second moment of the total failure of me as a mother is that education is everything, or at least a lot. My child showed his character from infancy, and he did not just refuse to eat, he choked on food, every time if it was not what he wanted, he was used to it and “will be”.
I remember a year, under pressure from my grandmother, my mother, whom I was visiting in Russia at that time, I practically force-fed my son with buckwheat porridge and chicken, and he ate almost five tablespoons of porridge and a whole leg of chicken, after which he choked on the last bite and spat out everything eaten along with my gigantic efforts.
We also read: you won’t be forcefully fed: why can’t you force a child to eat by force
But the worst sin of mine in the eyes of the nearest public was that my son was seriously late in speech.
Nothing, I told myself, he is learning to speak two languages, he is about to speak ...
The first time I sounded the alarm at 18 months. We went to the nurse for a regular checkup, and it turned out that at 18 months he had not only the first words, but even sounds that would mean his favorite cup, plate, food, game, or something else loved. In fact, he had three favorite words-sounds: the car, this was actually his first word, he really said “car” once a year. He might have said it again, but I couldn’t say for sure whether the word was or was a spontaneous sound. But he always indicated the car accurately and on time - “brrrrrr”, and this could not be confused with anything. The same thing happened with trains and planes. On this all his sound phrases ended.
By the age of two, the son began to repeat the words and even knew some numbers. In fact, he knew how to count to 10, and also began to talk. He repeated the word for the video in which the children were taught to read, and we rejoiced, exhaling, well, finally, now, now he will not be stopped and children's mumbling chatter will pour over the river. It was not there, this new word never appeared anywhere else.
The third strange, complex and really exciting moment was that it seemed that he did not understand me. That is, "get in the carriage," "go home," and he knew very familiar phrases from five hundred times. But such requests as “bring it to mom”, “throw the ball”, “close the door”, “where is dad?” caused a complete loss, the child rolled the machine not to me, but somewhere to the side, threw the ball, turned away from me, and did the exact opposite. Making him fulfill the request as intended was completely impossible.
But I persuaded myself that this was bilingualism, that kind of character, he was still very small, and in general, he would speak tomorrow, and immediately begin to understand everything, everything could be explained to him in detail, and all difficulties would be solved by themselves.
How naive I was ... It is naive, like many other parents, who believe that their children are typical, and that speech is when a person speaks words and sentences, taking speech for communication. And this is the grossest error of the same wonderful mothers who have a lucky ticket, of another motherhood.
The first one. The thing is that speech is just the tip of the iceberg. Speech does not develop on its own, it is a natural and logical continuation of a huge layer of human ability to communicate. It turns out that the child first comprehends this science perfectly, before he speaks.
In other words, if the development of speech is delayed, then you should immediately pay attention to how well the child speaks other non-verbal languages: sign communication (pointing finger, hand or look at the subject of his desires or interest), sound communication (intonation, exclamations, screeches, crying , it also happens to be different, and if you have never heard different types of crying of your child, in combination with the absence of other communication skills, then you should think and beware), body language (facial expressions, smile, surprise, curiosity, accompanying the eyes of an adult - mother, dad, grandmother, educator and a person who cares mainly about the child).
Second An important point to keep in mind: even bilingual children do not lag behind in the development of communication, and even if they lag behind, but not much from their peers. If the child does not regularly use the words in his two and a half years in one or two languages, he can be safely led to specialists and find out the reasons for the delay.
Third, the child should understand simple requests and questions, he can answer non-verbally “yes-no”, shaking his head, but the questions “this or that”, “yes-no” should not cause him complete stupor or total loss of orientation at this age.
Further, from above on these signs, it is necessary to impose the basic stages of development of a child at this age, and if there are delays, go find out their causes.
FourthWhat I would like to point out is that not only autism is the cause of the delay in the development of speech and overall development. Neurological abnormalities such as apraxia, dyslexia, etc., also affect the appearance of difficulties.
Apraxia, like autism, is very important in identification and diagnosis at an early age, simply because the intervention in this case must be done, the sooner the better.
And the most important thing, fifth, which was very difficult for me to do: not to be afraid, accept that something is going wrong, start looking for reasons and be ready to go all the way to the end. For me personally, it was unbearable to accept that the child remains. Under pressure from high expectations and assigned hopes, it was the worst thing for me in the world to not justify this trust, to fail a life test without receiving an Oscar for Motherhood. That is why, I continued to look for excuses in everything.
In general, keep in mind and remember that even if your child is not talking, you can easily understand his speech, but it must be communication.Bring your hand to the cupboard with toys or books, raise your hand, showing that what your child wants above or below does not quite mean non-verbal communication. And certainly, isolated cases are not considered as communication without other non-verbal signs and indicators.
Remember, any difficulty is an opportunity to conquer new heights, experience and adventure.
