SPD and Language Delays

Yesterday, R had an awesome session of speech therapy, and we've been seeing a whole lot more improvements of him attempting to speak and experiment with sounds.  Last night, I caught him singing ABC to himself.  He never did that before.  And I'm really excited!  He could be conversing with us soon and I can't wait!

Then it got me thinking.  A lot of people have often asked me how SPD affected R's language development, and how it has caused him such a delay.  So I thought I'd do a bit of research and share what I've learned.

In my previous post I talked about how essential pretend play is to language development.  I had also discussed even earlier on the link between SPD with oral motor problems, orofacial apraxia, and even Childhood Apraxia of Speech (CAS).

Today we will discuss about the usual language development of children and how SPD can affect this.

So let's jump right in!

Let's start by talking about how language development typically progresses in children without SPD.  In these cases, language development starts really, really, really early.  There was a study conducted on forty 30-hour old infants in 2013, and the doctors behind that study came out stating that language development begins in utero based on their results.  Apparently while inside the mother's womb, babies are already listening to their mothers as they talk, paying attention to the inflections, consonant and vowel sounds in their speech.

As I stated before, language comprises of two aspects - receptive and expressive.  In a nutshell, receptive language is the ability to understand language, while expressive language is the ability to use language.

The American Speech-Language-Hearing Association has this great resource on the typical language development of children between birth to five years old.   Here are some of the charts they have on site.

Receptive and Expressive Language Development for Age 0-1

Receptive and Expressive Language Development for Age 1-2

Receptive and Expressive Language Development for Age 2-3

Receptive and Expressive Language Development for Age 3-4

Receptive and Expressive Language Development for Age 4-5

Now, I said this was a typical language development chart.  Most children would fall nicely into this timetable of babbling and chatting, but R really worried us.  Oh, he understood us all right.  I'd ask him questions and he'd point to the right answers.  My husband and I didn't baby talk him at all, and he seemed quite happy to play some peek-a-boo games and the like.  We were not worried about his receptive language.

But his expressive language took much longer than we thought.  He would coo and babble all of a sudden and raise our hopes, but would suddenly stop after a few days.  By the time he was 18 months old, he could only say "Aaaah!"  and "Go!", a far cry from the one-to-two word sentences expected from his age.

So how did SPD affect language development?

The SPD Foundation includes speech delays and difficulties in their checklist.  This is because SPD is a disorder of how a person processes sensory information.

Daily, we process sensory information through what we see, feel, taste, hear and the like.  Our brain then categorizes those information into three responses:

1. "I like this." or "This is awesome!"
2. "Meh." or "This is okay..."
3. "No way!" or "Ugh!"

Now, for most people without SPD, some sensations are eventually tolerated.  It doesn't become an issue that someone would throw a massive meltdown over and cry for at least half and hour.  But for people with SPD, because of the different way sensory information is processed, the person can be triggered into a fight-or-flight mode that can be really difficult to hold back.

Problem is, language development also requires the brain to process information.  In SPD, that is already an issue.  A person with SPD is already too busy trying to sort out all that jumbled processing in his head, there no energy left to process language.

This article by a Chicago-based SLP says that when "a child struggles with sensory processing disorder, not only is his/her daily behavior affected, but also the acquisition of speech can be impaired. Many children with SPD are also diagnosed with a speech delay or aphasia, a difficulty in conveying spoken language. This can occur when a child is sensitive to sound and has trouble discerning the auditory information around him/her. If a child cannot discern between particular voices or is unable to focus on words being spoken to him/her, it can result in missing valuable time to increase vocabulary and verbal communication."

So yes, SPD can affect speech development.  And the best treatment for that is to make sure you have two therapists - occupational and speech.  The OT will address the sensory issues, while the SLP will work on the language development.

R has been blessed to have an OT and SLP who interact daily and discuss what their plans are for his sessions, as well as update each other on R's progress with each time they meet.  We also found that enrolling R in Gymboree and getting him involved in our church's Vacation Bible School helped a lot, as he was interacting a lot with other kids.

And there we have it.  So now, I'm just going to sit back, and watch how my son continues to develop linguistically.  It was a long journey, but we're slowly getting there!  And I'm so looking forward to the day he can converse with us naturally.