Is Your Child’s Language Developing Properly?

Parents rejoice as they watch their child grow and develop, eagerly anticipating their first words. But after the child speaks those first words, doubts may arise as to whether their language is growing and developing properly.

The early stages of a child's life are among the most important in their journey, during which a child develops significantly in terms of language (from the age of 8 months to 3 years). In their first months, they begin by cooing, making sounds, and interacting with whoever speaks to them through movement or attention. Between 10 months and one year, they begin attempting to pronounce their first words (mama - baba - nanna), even if they do not grasp their meaning. Their language skills continue to develop gradually until they reach the age of three—the stage where speech truly takes off using pronouns, tenses, and complex sentence structures. Learn here in detail about the stages of child language development.

Language development varies from child to child; however, a child's delay in any of the preceding stages may be an indicator of potential language disorders. Indicators of language delay appear early in a child, yet 76% of parents do not realize the existence of a language problem in their child until later on. Following a study it conducted, the American Speech-Language-Hearing Association stated that 8% of children suffer from language delay problems, and that language disorders are the most common and least detected in the early stage.

In Saudi Arabia, there is no systematic data on the prevalence of language disorders among children, but it appears that diagnosis is consistently delayed, meaning children do not receive the required support.

And we cannot blame them for that; a child suffering from language delay does not suffer from a problem with speech or hearing, but rather suffers from a problem in understanding language, in using it, or in both.

Among the signs of language delay is having difficulty with:

• Understanding what people say
• Following directions
• Participating in conversations
• Telling a story or recount in sequential order
• Staying on topic
• Acquiring new words
• Forming sentences
• Using the correct verb tense

It has been observed that these children are more vulnerable to social, emotional, behavioral, and cognitive problems, and the consequences of language delay appear in:

• Behavioral problems
• Difficulty making friends
• Isolation
• Difficulties in reading and writing
• Poor academic achievement
• Dropping out of school
• Psychological disorders
• General health problems, with their healthcare costs at 4–5 years being higher than their same-age peers

These problems may appear from childhood, but they can affect them to a greater extent during adolescence and adulthood.

Since language is one of the most important capacities for communication and for expressing and understanding emotions, how can we be sure of our children's level of language skill development? Is it on the right track, or are they experiencing a language delay?

Some parents notice signs of language delay in their children but adopt a flawed "wait and see" approach, which causes them to miss the easiest and most beneficial early intervention stage. They wait until the child passes three years of age, which complicates language issues further and demands far greater effort from parents. This may be due to the fact that past assessments

required specialists, laboratories, longer time, and higher costs.

Now, however, modern methods have been developed that enable parents to conduct an initial screening of their child's language skills themselves without needing to visit a clinic, using reliable and effective tools, including Ynmo Plan app which contains the JISH Arabic Language Development Inventory.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=TNevk4v9IgI&t=2s

The JISH Arabic Language Development Inventory

The research team at Jeddah Institute for Speech and Hearing (JISH) worked on studying the MacArthur Communicative Development Inventory, which is an effective, highly credible tool for measuring children's language and has been translated and standardized into many world languages (such as Spanish, German, French, Chinese, Japanese, Swedish, and others), proving its effectiveness across all those environments. The team also worked on designing the JISH Arabic Language Development Inventory based on the methods used by MacArthur in his inventory, adapting and standardizing it to suit the terminology, grammar, and morphology of the Arabic language. The assessment is an early screening tool for childhood language disorders starting from 8 months of age, and a digital version of it has been developed on Ynmo Plan app so parents can complete it from anywhere.

It measures the child's language across several aspects, displaying the mastery percentage for each aspect classified as: Typical - Borderline - Delayed, along with a detailed report comparing the child's language skill level with their same-age peers. You can then book a consultation session with a specialist to discuss the screening results.

The assessment consists of two inventories:

• The JISH Arabic Language Development Inventory / Words and Gestures (Signs)

It is intended for children aged 8 to 16 months, and consists of:

Questions aimed at finding out whether the child has begun responding to language or not
Questions aimed at finding out the extent to which the child imitates and uses words
28 simple sentences for parents to determine whether the child understands them or not
Through this inventory, specific scores can be obtained for receptive vocabulary (words the child understands), verbal vocabulary production (words the child says and uses), and the child's use of symbolic communicative gestures (such as expressing emotions through facial expressions).

Information: Non-verbal gestures are very important and play a major role in infants' early communication skills, serving as the cornerstone of language development.

• The JISH Arabic Language Development Inventory / Words and Sentences

It is intended for children for ages 16 months to 3 years, and consists of:

Part One: 898 spoken vocabulary items divided across 21 semantic categories.
Ten of these categories are dedicated to nouns (animals, toys, food...), while the remaining categories include: verbs, adjectives, time... and others.
The vocabulary section is followed by five questions regarding the extent of the child's use of words that express the past and future, as well as words that express events and people who are not present.

Information: It was found that this development in language regarding the use of place and time typically begins in the late single-word stage of language development (Ingram, 1981).

Part Two: Screening and evaluating the child's skills in using grammatical rules related to syntax and morphology.

Part Two contains five sections: the first three evaluate the child's use of different word forms (such as pronouns, plurals, masculine and feminine, etc.), a section of sentence choices used by children, and the final section asks parents to write three of the longest sentences the child has recently used, which is the only item containing open-ended qualitative questions.

Both inventories can also be used to assess older children with speech delays.

Where can I find the JISH Language Development Inventory, and how can I use it?

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=CnpUMDui7YQ

1- Download the Ynmo Plan app from

Google Play

App Store

2- Create an account

3- Access available assessments and select the Language Development Assessment (short version)

4- Click on Add New Child

5- Take the test and submit the answers

6- The result appears immediately

Note: You can take the test across multiple sessions by clicking "Save and Complete Later"

Parents are the best evaluators of their child's language skill development, so do not hesitate to take the step of assessing their communication and language skills through the Ynmo app from here 

to give them a better chance to connect with the world around them, a chance for better ability to express emotions and desires, a chance for a higher educational level, and to give them a chance to acquire sound language that builds a better future.

Join us on the hashtag #WithEarlyScreeningWeGiveThemACHance on Twitter

Originally published in Arabic. This English version was produced with AI-assisted translation; the Arabic original remains the reference.