What to Do When Your Child Isn't Talking: Expert Strategies to Help Your Baby or Toddler Talk, Overcome Speech Delay, and Build Language Skills for Life

by Tracey Blake, Nicola Lathey

Overview

Help your little one overcome childhood speech delay—with expert guidance and simple strategies you can use at home!

For parents of young children, speech milestones are monumental—from baby babble to first words to full sentences. It’s natural to worry when they don’t arrive “on schedule” or when your little one seems to lag behind their peers.

In What to Do When Your Child Isn’t Talking, speech and language therapist Nicola Lathey and journalist Tracey Blake offer parents much-needed reassurance and solutions—at a moment when speech delay and regression is more common than ever. Organized by major milestones from birth to age four, this don’t-panic guide will empower you to:

• Identify early signs of speech delay and possible causes— “glue ear,” tongue tie, suspected autism, or simply your child’s individual pace of learning.
• Help your child practice specific speech sounds and words that they find tricky with fun activities, from classic clapping games to filling a “story sack.”
• Get to the root of toddler tantrums, chronic shyness, unclear speech, stuttering, social anxiety, and other issues stunting your child’s self-expression.
• Communicate better with your child, and watch them thrive!

Publisher’s note: What to Do When Your Child Isn’t Talking is an updated and revised edition of Small Talk.

Product Details

ISBN-13:	9781615199624
Publisher:	The Experiment, LLC
Publication date:	04/25/2023
Edition description:	Second Edition, New edition
Pages:	336
Sales rank:	659,886
Product dimensions:	5.90(w) x 8.90(h) x 0.90(d)

About the Author

Nicola Lathey is a pediatric speech and language therapist specializing in children under five and the founder of the Owl Centre, which provides assessment and therapy services to children and adults across the whole of the UK. She lives in Cheltenham, England.

Tracey Blake is a Daily Mail journalist and editor turned ed-tech entrepreneur who’s passionate about early learning and child development. She has two kids and lives in Buckinghamshire, England.

Table of Contents

Introduction: How this book can help your child talk
 
Chapter 1: How to recognize a problem with your child’s speech
 
Chapter 2: What to do when . . . your baby isn’t babbling
(0 – 12 months)
 
Chapter 3: What to do when . . . your baby isn’t saying any first words
(12 – 18 months)
 
Chapter 4: What to do when . . . your toddler can’t put two words together
(18 – 24 months)
 
Chapter 5: What to do when . . . your toddler’s language is way behind their friends
(24 – 36 months)
 
Chapter 6: Other common concerns
 
Appendix
Glossary
Support Groups and Charities
Recommended Reading
Resources
Endnotes
Index

Editorial Reviews

"Forget goo goo ga ga, to encourage your baby to be a fast and confident talker, you need to ditch the baby talk and start conversations—right from the start."

uk.lifestyle.yahoo.com

"In a fun, down-to-earth style, [What to Do When Your Child Isn’t Talking] gives parents the practical tools to understand their babies and to help them develop speech and language while sharing the excitement of each new word."

Dr. T. Berry Brazelton

"[What to Do When Your Child Isn’t Talking] is a must-read for parents keen to help their child express themselves from the get go. I can't recommend it enough."

Gurgle magazine

"Engagingly written, largely from a parent’s perspective, this book is certainly worth directing your parents to if they want to gain a solid understanding of speech and language development and ‘tune in’ to their own children’s needs."

Nursery World

"Written in a no-nonsense, easy-to-understand way, [What to Do When Your Child Isn’t Talking] fills a gap in an otherwise saturated market by providing parents with all the advice they need to specifically encourage and stimulate the natural stages of language development in those crucial formative years."

Babyworld.co.uk

National Parenting Publications Awards (NAPPA) Parenting Resources Competition, Silver Award (Education category)
 
“Full of resources and suggestions, this book is an easy-to-use reference.”—Library Journal

​“In a fun, down-to-earth style, [What to Do When Your Child Isn’t Talking] gives parents the practical tools to understand their babies and to help them develop speech and language while sharing the excitement of each new word.”—Dr. T. Berry Brazelton, Professor of Pediatrics, Emeritus, Harvard Medical School
 
“[What to Do When Your Child Isn’t Talking] is a must-read for parents keen to help their child express themselves from the get go. I can't recommend it enough.”—Gurgle magazine
 
“Written in a no-nonsense, easy-to-understand way, [What to Do When Your Child Isn’t Talking] fills a gap in an otherwise saturated market by providing parents with all the advice they need to specifically encourage and stimulate the natural stages of language development in those crucial formative years.”—Babyworld.co.uk
 
“Engagingly written, largely from a parent’s perspective, this book is certainly worth directing your parents to if they want to gain a solid understanding of speech and language development and ‘tune in’ to their own children’s needs.”—Nursery World, the UK’s leading magazine and website for practitioners and decision-makers across the early years education and childcare sectors
 
“Forget goo goo ga ga, to encourage your baby to be a fast and confident talker, you need to ditch the baby talk and start conversations—right from the start.”—uk.lifestyle.yahoo.com

From the Publisher

05/01/2023

Addressing one of the most common worries for parents, speech/language therapist Lathey and journalist/ed-tech entrepreneur Blake provide support and resources for parents who have a child with delayed speech development. This book demonstrates how to first identify whether there actually is a deficit in speech, language, or communication. Subsequent chapters discuss what to do to help children during the stages between infancy and early childhood if the baby isn't babbling or joining two words together. One chapter addresses shyness vs. when the child is reticent to talk to others. Specific challenges such as tongue tie, pacifier usage, and stuttering are also covered, along with questions and answers specific to English-as-a-second-language (ESL) households. Practical solutions include games to build vowel development, learning words through singing, books to facilitate progress, and ideas that incorporate play. The book also contains a glossary, a helpful list of relevant support groups and organizations, and reading recommendations for additional learning. This book is structured to allow parents to flip to the specific situations they face to find advice and inspiration. VERDICT Full of resources and suggestions, this book is an easy-to-use reference.

Library Journal