Question
My son’s speech sounds a bit like a scream when he talks, and my relatives say he might have some issues with his vocal cords. According to the above situation, his tongue shouldn’t be too short as they said, making it hard for him to speak. However, when he was little, we communicated less with him and didn’t take him out to play much. What should we do?
Answer
There are many reasons why a baby might talk late, such as the lack of communication between adults and the baby, which limits the child’s practice in speaking and thus affects language development; some parents may overly indulge and cater to their baby’s needs, always responding to their gestures and expressions, neglecting language training, leading to a habit of using gestures instead of speech, which in turn slows down the child’s language development; conditions like intellectual disability, cerebral palsy, hearing impairments, infantile autism, central nervous system damage or dysfunction can lead to delayed speech and may also present with other corresponding abnormalities. Mildly intellectually disabled children may start speaking 1 to 3 years later than normal.