My child doesn’t talk, HELP!

…and what has tying a shoelace, neat eating and balance got to do with speech anyway?
Melodie de Jager

It is intensely frustrating when a child cannot or does not talk, because without language it is difficult for him to
express his needs; develop emotionally; be independent; make friends; learn; and have a positive self-esteem.
Without language it is also difficult for him to be accepted socially; go to school; and succeed in school, because
most assessments in school are based on either verbal language or written language. In the absence of language it is
also very difficult to determine the child’s intellectual ability; identify if and what barriers to learning are present;
and if he has the potential to function in a mainstream school.
According to Martie Pieterse (2002) it is almost as important for a child to talk as it is to breathe, because his
survival as a person in his own right depends largely on his language ability – listening skills, vocabulary, sentence
construction, logical thinking, creative thinking, conceptualization, number skills, descriptive and symbolic language.

1. WHAT IS LANGUAGE?
Language is the ability to communicate with and it has two components: passive or receptive language (listening)
and active or expressive language (speech and writing).

Receptive language has two components: verbal language and non-verbal language. Around 90% of language is
non-verbal language (gestures, body language, tone, etc.) and develops before verbal language (words).
Expressive language also has these two components: verbal language and non-verbal language. Expressive
language(words) develop slightly later and builds on receptive language (gestures, body language, tone, etc.) using
muscles to operate the mechanics of verbal language, which is breath control, vocal cords, soft palate, tongue and
lips, the position of the tongue, the position of the teeth and the resonance from the sinus cavities (Nash-Wortham
& Hunt, 2008). These muscles naturally develop while a baby is sucking for comfort and suckling for food, and need
to be well-develop before a child can speak clearly.

The Babkin reflex links non-verbal expressive language to verbal expressive language when the baby’s hands and
feet knead while suckling. This link between the mouth and hands can also be observed when the jaw or tongue is
moving in support, while a child is tying a shoelace, cutting on a line or mom is applying mascara. The mouth, hands
and feet need to function independent from one another, before a child can speak, write and read with ease.

2. IS LANGUAGE INNATE?
Yes and no.
Yes, the ability to learn a language is innate and most babies learn to speak naturally and effortlessly if
they grow up in an environment where language is spoken and there is lots of interaction with the baby.
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 No, language is not innate because a baby is not born speaking a language. Speech is a learned activity and is
acquired by listening to language and speaking it. It relies on efficient hearing to develop receptive language (what
he hears and understands) and expressive language (what he says or writes). Afred Tomatis (1991) confirms the link
between the sounds a child hears and the sounds a child makes by saying: the mouth can only produce what the ear
can hear.

3. SENSITIVE TIME TO DEVELOP LANGUAGE

A child is able to learn any language as long as the child is exposed to that language early in life. This is due
to the wide range of receptors in the ear that can hear any speech sound and not only the sounds of his
mother tongue. According to Sarah-Jayne Blakemore and Uta Frith (2005) babies lose the ability to
distinguish between sounds to which they are not exposed to by the end of their first year i.e. Japanese
babies can distinguish between R and L, even though those sounds are not part of the Japanese language,
but the Japanese babies lose the ability to hear and say those sounds if they were not introduced to those
sounds before 10 months of age. Losing the ability to hear certain sounds is called pruning and enables the
brain to focus on developing the language of his mother tongue.
Receptive language begins to develop in utero when baby is constantly exposed to the sound of
mom’s voice even though her voice is filtered through water. Expressive language starts at more or less
the same time as a toddler learns to stand.

0-3 months Expressive language does not only start when a baby can stand, it starts to develop with suckling, a
variety of cries and smiles

4-7 months baby is gurgling and babbling with varying intonations (ghoe, gha, ba-ba-ba, ma-ma-ma)

7-9 months baby starts to only use sounds that it has heard in the environment.
Baby also flex and extend the toes during this time and are often noticeable
just before the onset of speech (Goddard Blythe, 2008)
9-12 months baby mimics tone and sentence construction and starts to link sounds to actions
such as waving ta-ta, clapping hands and making beckoning and pointing motions
with his hand
12-18 months baby makes his first real words – mama, dada (nouns) and dudu (verbs),
tends to create his own collective nouns (tat for all animals), point at body parts and
have a vocabulary of 50 words
18-24 months baby tends to have a receptive vocabulary of more than 1000 words and an

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 expressive vocabulary of 200-300 words (Pieterse, 2002), use one or two words to convey a
sentence.
2 years he says his name, use the correct word order in three and more word sentences
3 years he can say his age and that he is a boy, he can understand longer sentences, follow
three instructions and tell a simple story that most people can understand
4 years expressive vocabulary is now around 1000 words, he can repeat four figures, sings
along and asks many questions
5 years he can pronounce all his words correctly, understands spatial relationships and uses
words like bigger and strongest, his sentences includes ‘if’ and ‘but’, uses ‘I, me,
mine’ correctly, uses tenses, knows opposites and his birth date
6 years he has an expressive vocabulary of about 3000, knows the days of the week, colours, shapes,
numbers to 10, uses spatial words like ‘behind, in between, near’, can describe similarities and
differences, can find rhyming words, break down a word into sounds, can easily identify the first and
last sounds in words.
He can also eat neatly with a knife and fork, tie his shoe laces, skip with a rope, and stand unaided
on one leg for 10 seconds and cross his midline.

4. TYING A SHOELACE, EATING NEATLY AND STANDING ON ONE LEG

A child who has had a normal development should be physically, emotionally, socially and intellectually
ready to tie a shoe lace, eat neatly using tools and stand on one leg at the age of 6, because all these skills
have subtle ties to language development. These subtle ties can be seen when you take a closer look at
listening, movement and balance, fine motor control, verbal comprehension and positive feedback:

Listening
Listening does not only involve the ear, it also involves the skin as the primary instrument of hearing.
Michael Lazarev (2004) explains this by saying: “the mother’s voice is the most powerful acoustic
stimulation for the developing child before birth, providing a vibrational pattern of both the uterine and
the external environment.” The baby becomes aware of these vibrations from as early as 5-7 weeks after
conception when the Withdrawal reflex sensitises the skin of the entire body to become involved with
receptive language. Lazarev continues to say that music and the mother’s speech prime the human brain
for language and the underlying rhythms of the physiology of the developing baby (Lazarev in Goddard
Blythe, 2008).
In most babies the sensitisation of the skin, balance and hearing develop even before mom knows
that she is pregnant. Balance and hearing are closely related as these organs share chambers and fluid, but

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separate their functions around seven and a half weeks after conception. That means that all information
from the skin needs to travel via the balance system before it can sensitise and develop the hearing
apparatus (cochlea). The interplay between the skin, balance system and hearing apparatus enables baby
to start moving either towards the sound if it is pleasant or away from the sound if it is unpleasant.

To move appropriately is a sign of development.

Mollie Davies

Movement and balance

Movement is a part of life from the moment of conception and is crucial to language development.
Movement is initiated by a variety of reflexes, with survival as its primary focus and development as its
secondary focus. There are reflexes to open and close the eyes, to open and close the mouth, stretch out
and flex the body and limbs, etc. There are reflexes to develop the different midlines of the body and other
reflexes to cross those midlines. There are reflexes to open and close the hands, flex the feet and wriggle
the bum.
All the reflexes are under the control of different parts of the central nervous system that uses
repetitive movement to make the balance system effective. An effective balance system is necessary to
develop muscle tone to coordinate and control muscle movement - even the muscle in and around the
mouth to produce speech. In a nutshell movement makes the balance system effective, and an effective
balance system controls movement.
The two kinds of muscles involved in movement are gross motor and fine motor activities:
Gross motor refers to the movement and control of the large muscles of the body relating to walking, kicking,
throwing, jumping, climbing and catching. Gross motor movements require a body that has developed in proportion
with adequate strength, co-ordination and control. It also requires the development of the balance system to
control muscle tone and directionality; and is guided by the senses of touch, intraception, smell, taste, hearing and
sight to plan a response. Each of these activities is called a developmental milestone.
Once a child can move and STOP moving, the basic mechanics needed for language and learning is in place.
Does it mean if a child cannot move and STOP that his language development will be affected? No not necessarily.
Even though controlled physical movement and speech development are associated, language and movement are
developed in different parts of the brain and therefore a person can have the one without the other. To illustrate the
relationship between movement and speech, Christine Macintyre & Pamela Deponio (2003) states that “clear speech
(articulation) depends on movement, i.e. control of the fine muscles in the mouth, and any lack of muscle tone
around the mouth means that both the acquisition of speech and communication are affected”.
Fine motor (muscles) skills are the results of well-developed gross motor skills. It involves limited movement
to enable a child to perform controlled movements e.g. to hold a pencil in a three point grip, to fasten buttons, to

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eat neatly, to form letters, etc. Movement of the lips and tongue are also fine motor skills and are needed for clear
pronunciation.

Dominance
Dominance also has a role to play in language development as can be seen from the observations made at the
BabyGym Institute in Johannesburg. This observations show that babies with a dominant left brain tend to talk
earlier and walk later, while babies with right brain dominance tend to walk earlier and talk later. The difference in
this developmental sequence is because of a baby’s innate need to have its needs met – a ‘left brain baby’ has a
stronger language brain and hence asks for what he needs, while a ‘right brain baby’ has a stronger hands-on brain
and rather do something like crawling or pulling than ask for what he needs (De Jager, 2009). Kindly note that it is
not implied that there is a left or right brain baby – babies are whole brained, but they tend to use the one side of
the brain before using the other side as well.
Dominance does not only refer to the brain, but also to the dominant ear. The left ear is more aware of
rhythm, tone and the ‘music’ of language due to its association with the right brain, while the right ear supports
verbal language and picks up on vocabulary and grammar (De Jager, 2009a). It is clear that dominance of the ear and
brain may impact on the receptive and expressive language development of a child, when considering that a child
with a left ear and right brain dominance are more inclined to develop non-verbal language, while a child with a right
ear and left brain dominance are more inclined to develop verbal language.
Comprehension
Once the sounds have been received by the senses, it has to travel to the parts of the brain that form perceptions
and give meaning to these sound. According to Sarah-Jayne Blakemore and Uta Frith (2005) the main areas in the
brain associated with speech and writing is:

1. Wernicke’s area is in the temporal lobe and is involved in the decoding and understanding of
language
2. Broca’s area is in the frontal lobe and involved in vocalization, movement of larynx, tongue
and lips in speech
3. Angular Gyrus is in the parietal lobe and involved in reading and writing
4. Visual word form area is at the base of the left temporal lobe and involved in processing the
spelling, sound and meaning of words
5. Exner centre for writing movement of hands and finger is in the left frontal lobe.

Receptive and expressive language is not only confined to these areas. The following PET Scans of the brain show
brain activity when processing language. For instance when a person is speaking, there is increased activity in the
areas of the brain associated with hearing and hand movements (Hannaford, 1997).

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 Hearing Words Seeing Words

Speaking Words Generating Words

The main areas in the brain associated with speech and writing is in the intellectual brain. According to Paul
MacLean’s Triune brain theory (1990) man has three brains in one: the survival brain, the emotional brain and the
intellectual brain. A child needs to develop the emotional brain before the intellectual brain with its language
generating qualities can be fully accessed.
Positive feedback
Language develops through listening and speaking. Babies and children thrive on positive feedback for their efforts.
Positive feedback is rewarding and encouraging -both key components needed for emotional and language
development.

5. WHAT IMPACTS NEGATIVELY ON LANGUAGE DEVELOPMENT?

Chronic ear infections

Chronic ear infections of the middle ear have a devastating effect on the child’s development due to the close
association with the balance system, which plays an important role in the development of gross and fine motor skills,
muscle tone, spatial awareness and language development.

Early feeding problems

The ease with which a baby sucks and suckles affects the development of the muscle tone of the lips and tongue, the
ability to swallow and the breathing rate, which in turn affect the ability to enjoy and chew solid food and tolerate
food with ‘lumps’. Poor suckling and poor eating have a delayed effect on the apparatus needed for clear speech.

Poor exposure to language

Not only is a positive role model for the child’s mother tongue and positive feedback on his efforts important, clear
boundaries when a child is exposed to more than one language is also important. Language is place or person

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specific. If mom only speaks English and dad only speaks Spanish (person specific), or the second language is only
spoken at school or when with his grandparent (place specific), language confusion tend not to occur. It is important
to remember that any child, who is learning two or more languages at the same time, may not develop speech and
language skills as quickly as a child who is only mastering one language. Language confusion and delayed language is
a certainty where a child is exposed to little language, poor language role models or where more than one language
is spoken at the same time or is mixed.
An aberrant reflex

Reflexes are automatic and stereotyped movements with survival as its primary focus and development as its
secondary focus. Primitive reflexes are essential for the baby’s survival in the first few weeks of life. The primitive
reflexes only have a limited life span and having enabled the baby to survive the first few months of life, should go to
rest, so movement can be controlled by the intellectual brain. This allows more complex neural structures to
develop, which enable the baby and later the child, to have control over voluntary movement.
An aberrant primitive reflex is a primitive reflex that has not gone to rest and is an indicator of an immaturity
within the central nervous system. Reflexes that may impact on language development specifically are:
i. Withdrawal reflex is not a true primitive reflex but an intrauterine reflex, which means that it should go
to rest before a baby is born. The withdrawal reflex is responsible for the sensitisation of the skin and if
it does not go to rest, it may be responsible for tactile sensitivity, which impacts on early feeding.

ii. Moro reflex is responsible for the development of the balance system and if the Moro does not go to
rest, balance, muscle tone, motor planning and gross and fine motor skills may be impacted upon. The
Moro is not the only primitive reflex involved with the development of the balance system, the Tonic
Labyrinthine and Asymmetrical Tonic Neck reflexes are also involved. Each of these three reflexes takes
responsibility to develop the function of one of the three semi-circular canals each. If only one of these
three reflexes is still marginally active, a child may be able to compensate and the effect may be
minimal. . If any one of these three reflexes are still very active or more than one of these reflexes are
still active, it may impact substantially on the child’s physical, emotional and language development.

The Moro is also a startle reflex and literally startles a child into a state of alertness - similar to jump-
starting a car. This goes hand in hand with the fight or flight response and is much needed for a child’s
development, but if the Moro reflex is overly active it may leave a child in a perpetual state of fear. In
such a state neither the development of feeding nor the development of language is important, as the
primal focus is survival.

iii. Rooting and sucking reflex is a soothing reflex and serves to bring the hand and mouth together so baby
can suck its thumb for pleasure and calms down. Sucking stimulates the emotional brain and in so doing
counteracts the effects of the Moro reflex. The rooting and sucking reflex is also involved with suckling
(sucking for food) – an action that is vastly different from sucking for pleasure. Sucking nurtures, while
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 suckling nourishes. Suckling means a baby is latching and closing the mouth firmly, moving the tongue in
a circular up and down motion while creating lots of suction. Suckling develops the mechanics and
muscle tone needed for feeding and speech and soothes at the same time. A baby who battled to suckle
may not have the benefit of the nurturing and nourishing nature that it provides and may stay in a state
of survival. Such a child would tend to suck his thumb, dummy, hair or collar for many years in an
attempt to complete the developmental purpose of the rooting and sucking reflex, but possibly without
reaching emotional maturity or clear speech.

iv. Tonic Labyrinthine reflex (TLR) not only takes responsibility to develop the function of the ‘up and
down’ semi-circular canal and the ability to flex and extend the neck and body, but is also involved in the
development of the hearing apparatus needed for receptive language. An overactive TLR may well leave
a child feeling overwhelmed and still in a state of fight or flight, which prevents the development of the
top of the three brains – the language brain.

v. Asymmetrical Tonic Neck reflex (ATNR) takes responsibility to develop the semi-circular canal involved
with left/right awareness and movement. The ATNR activates the left arm and leg to respond at the
same time and in the same manner while the right arm and leg pair up to work together. This one-sided
response establishes the midline between the left and right sides of the body as well as lateral
awareness of the sidedness of the body. This lateralisation also serves to startle the left and right brain
into awareness - an awareness that is critical for receptive as well as passive language development. If
an ATNR does not go to rest, it would prevent crawling and the integrative benefits of crawling.
Numerous research studies have indicated the benefits of crawling on language development, fine
motor control, balance, reading, writing and numeracy, therefore the implications of an active ATNR is
clear if it does not go to rest at the right time.

vi. Palmar reflex is involved with rooting and sucking and part of a group of grasping reflexes to sooth the
baby and develop the emotional brain. The Palmar reflex is also associated with fine motor control in
preparation for non-verbal and verbal communication. It is specifically the separation of the thumbs
from the other fingers that prepares the hands for self feeding, doing up buttons, tying shoe laces and
holding a book while reading or writing. Crawling assists the Palmar reflex in developing muscle tone in
the hands and the separation of the thumb and coincides with the onset of babbling.

vii. Plantar reflex is responsible for developing the longest axon in the body in preparation for balance and
standing in an upright manner. The flexing and extending of the toes are often noticeable just before the
onset of speech (Goddard Blythe, 2008).

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 6. HOW DO I KNOW IF MY CHILD HAS A LANGUAGE PROBLEM?

Problems with speech and language can be observed when you recognise three or more of these behaviours:

 feeding as a baby was difficult

 speaking started later than the guidelines provided earlier in this article
 child gulps rather than swallows and burps often
 child dribbles or lips are often wet
 child is quiet, reserved and seldom heard
 mouth is mostly open
 breathing is uneven and shallow
 stammers, stutters
 omits sounds when speaking
 battles to sequence sounds
 substitutes sounds e.g. l for r, f or v for th, t for c or k
 battles with grammar
 the speed, rhythm and volumes of speech is unusual
 only you can understand him
 you tend to speak for him.

7. WHAT CAN YOU DO TO HELP YOUR CHILD?

If you recognise three or more of these behaviours listed above, seek professional help from a speech therapist, an
audiologist, an occupational therapist, a neuro-developmental physiotherapist or a Mind Moves Instructor. In the
absence of professional help, the following Mind Moves are from Mind Moves – moves that mend the mind (De
Jager, M. 2009a) and have been found helpful to improve receptive and expressive language. For more information
visit www.mindmoves.co.za .

Mind Moves and activities to improve receptive language

 Ensure that no primitive reflexes are still running and do each Mind Moves three times a day, three repetitions
each
 Mind Moves Antennae Adjuster
 Mind Moves Massage
 Mind Moves Power ON
 Mind Moves Homolateral walk & Bilateral walk
 Mind Moves Rise and shine
 Mind Moves Temporal toner
 Mind Moves Neck flexor
 Read your child stories he is interested in
 Listen to songs, rhymes, stories and sound lotto on CD
 Less TV more CD
 Page through books and name all objects, later add verbs and adjectives.

Mind Moves and activities to improve expressive language

 Mind Moves Arm workout

 Mind Moves Leg workout
 Mind Moves Jaw dropper
 Mind Moves Tongue workout
 Mind Moves Lip workout
 Mind Moves Lip massage

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 Encourage child to apply lipstick and then to make a kiss-lip picture on a paper or kitchen towel. Crumple up a
kitchen towel and dab the remaining lipstick from the lips while the lips stay closed.
 Use textured finger toothbrushes to brush the tongue teeth and gums
 Rather drink form a nozzle bottle or straw than glass or cup – straw must be in the middle of the lips, right under
the nose and the lips like kiss-lips
 Eat something cold before eating food with an unfamiliar texture
 Eat biltong, carrots or pop corn to create a feeling of resistance in the mouth
 Blow out candles
 Blow bubbles and catch them
 Blow up balloons and party whistles
 Use a straw and blow paint to form different patterns on paper
 Use coloured clothes pegs and encourage child to fix them around the rim of a bowl in a specific sequence
 Encourage cutting with scissors to separate the thumb from the other fingers
 Squeeze water from a sponge, first with one hand and then the other
 Roll little paper balls and create goals with three pencils. Use a straw to play soccer blowing the paper balls to
score a goal. Increase the distance from the goal to encourage deep breathing and firm lip control
 Use peanut butter on the palate to encourage the tongue to lick it off (check for allergy to peanuts first)
 Encourage flexing of the toes and picking up toys with the toes and dropping it in a container
 Do 2D Spatial Orientation Mind Moves, say the name of each letter aloud

“Between the double dangers of using a diagnosis as an excuse for opting out of learning and conversely of having
low self-esteem due to a lack of explanation for a learning problem, there are many other shades of experience. The
value of diagnosis depends on the attitude of individuals and their willingness and motivation to overcome their
difficulties” (Blakemore & Frith, 2005).

BIBLIOGRAPHY

Davies, M. 2008. Movement and Dance in Early Childhood. London: SAGE Publications Ltd.

De Jager, M. 2009. BabyGym. Welgemoed: Metz Press.

De Jager, M. 2009a. Mind Moves – moves that mend the mind. Johannesburg: Mind Moves Institute.

Goddard Blythe, S. 2008. What babies and children really need. Gloucestershire: Hawthorn Press.

Hannaford, C. 1997. The dominance factor. Virginia: Great Ocean Publishers.

Lazarev, M. 2004. Foetal neurogymnastics. A paper presented at the 16th European Conference of Neuro-
Developmental Delay in Children with Specific Learning Difficulties, Chester UK, March 2004.

Macintyre, C. & Deponio, P. 2003. Assessing and supporting children with specific learning difficulties. Looking
beyond the label to assess the whole child. London: Routledge.

MacLean, P. 1990.The triune brain in evolution. New York: Plenum Press.

Nash-Wortham, M. & Hunt, J. 2008.Take time. Stonebridge: Robinswood Press.

Pieterse, M. 2002. Speel-Speel skoolgereed. Hoheizen: Metz Press.

Tomatis, T.A. 1991. The conscious ear: My life of transformation through listening. New York: Station Hill Press.

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