Receptive and Expressive Language Delay

Miriam Featherstone and Tyler Johnson

 Language Delay Overview

             A language delay is the failure to develop language capabilities at the expected time for the child’s chronological age. The child is progressing through the expected developmental milestones but he is acquiring the relevant capabilities several months after his typically developing peers. If a child has a receptive language delay, he is having trouble comprehending language. It is usual for receptive language skills to be in advance of expressive language skills because development is progressive. One has to understand language before one can use it effectively expressively. Therefore, it would be unusual for a receptive language delay to be greater than any co-occurring expressive language delay. These delays occur in up to 10% of children.

Receptive Language Delay

            A receptive language delay involves difficulty with comprehending language at the expected developmental milestone for the child’s chronological age. The child most likely has difficulty understanding longer utterances that include simple nouns that are combined with adjectives, verbs and prepositional phrases. Understanding spoken language is a complicated process, and all children will not be able to meet the milestones at every age. Developmental milestones are a set of functional skills or age-specific tasks that most children can complete at a certain age range.  Pediatricians use milestones to assess the development of a child.  Although each milestone has an associated age level, the actual age when a normally developing child reaches that milestone can vary because every child is unique. 

Tips for teaching a child with a receptive language delay:

•                Teach words in context and generalize across many contexts (if you are talking about the word "shoe", use the word when you are tying your child’s shoes, when putting one your own shoes, when going to a shoe store, etc.).

•                Break down multi-step directions into separate parts.

•                Shorten your sentences when giving directions and asking questions.

•                Model the answer to teach the child appropriate answers.

•                If your child does not do something when told, show him and then if necessary physically assist him

Expressive Language Delay

An expressive language delay is evident when expressive spoken language is below the appropriate for the child’s age but his language comprehension is intact. By age two, the expressive vocabulary of children with an expressive language delay is often twenty words. However their typically developing peers generally have approximately two hundred words. An expressive language delay may be manifested in a child’s limited ability to produce two-word combinations by age two.  According to Rescorla and Schwartz, as these children age, a number of them will continue to have problems with the syntactical structure of their sentences. The children may be able to produce sentence with the appropriate semantics to convey the correct meaning, but they lack the ability to use the correct morphemes to lengthen their utterances.

Although other significant cognitive, motor, sensory, or social and emotional disabilities may not exist, an expressive delay in language development that is untreated until the child begins school may put a child at a very considerable risk for long-term language, academic, and social deficits. These young children are at particular risk for persistent language problems and learning disabilities along with emotional and behavioral disorders.

Tips for teaching children with expressive language delays:

• Reflect the child’s messages and add one more word.
• Choose 5-10 words to highlight during daily routines and play activities, and repeat them often
• Use “fun” words and sounds like “uh-oh”, “Shhhhhhh,” or  “pop-pop-pop!”
• Pair words with gestures to help your child attend to and learn the word. Encourage the child to use gestures; these will eventually help to cue the words.
•  Be patient with the child.
• Don’t pressure your child to talk – this only creates more frustration. Accept their communication.
• Gently model the words for them.