Nursery World - Health Visitor Advice: Spotting language delays

In this series by senior health visitors, Shirley Adebayo, a senior health visitor at North Middlesex University Hospital, London, talks about stages of speech and language development following a case of pre-verbal three-year-old boys

There has been a noticeable increase in the number of children who have fewer words than would be expected for their age, or who are showing obvious signs of speech delay. This is likely to be in part due to the pandemic, with the lack of socialisation from lockdowns, and the difficulties doing the health reviews which are usually carried out.

If there is a lack of opportunities for socialisation, and/or a lack of contact with services, parents are more likely to be unaware when things are not progressing as expected. One mother I know of was unaware that her three-year-old twin boys were autistic, describing them as ‘playing well together and creating their own language’. Their condition was detected by a health visitor and the remainder of the appointment was concerned with gathering evidence for the referral.

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