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Sowell: Late-Talking Children
Creators Syndicate ^ | September 16, 2014 | Thomas Sowell

Posted on 09/15/2014 10:32:00 AM PDT by jazusamo

Anyone who knows what anxiety, and sometimes anguish, parents go through when they have a child who is still not talking at age two, three or even four, can appreciate what a blessing it can be to have someone who can tell them what to do — and what not to do.

That someone is Professor Stephen Camarata of the Vanderbilt University Medical Center, whose recently published book, "Late-Talking Children" gives parents information and advice that they are not likely to find anywhere else. And it does so in plain English.

Professor Camarata has been researching, diagnosing and treating children with speech problems for decades. Moreover, he knows from personal experience what it is like to be a parent of a late-talking child, and he himself was three and a half years old before he began to speak. So he has seen this problem from many angles.

A child can be years behind schedule in beginning to speak and yet go on to have a perfectly normal life. Some children with delayed speech may even be noticeably brighter than other children their age. But, for other late-talking children, the delay in beginning to speak can be a symptom of much deeper and long-lasting problems, including mental retardation or autism.

Most parents are in no position to know which of these very different conditions applies to their own child. Nor is it easy to find out, because there are so many people so ready to put labels on late-talking children that can follow these children for years, even when these labels have no solid foundation.

False diagnoses of late-talking children are by no means rare. Even Albert Einstein was thought to be retarded, when he failed to talk at an age when most other toddlers begin to speak...

(Excerpt) Read more at creators.com ...


TOPICS: Culture/Society; Editorial
KEYWORDS: books; latetalkingchildren; sowell; stephencamarata; thomassowell
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Late-Talking Children: A Symptom or a Stage?
1 posted on 09/15/2014 10:32:00 AM PDT by jazusamo
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To: abigail2; Amalie; American Quilter; arthurus; awelliott; Bahbah; bamahead; Battle Axe; ...
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2 posted on 09/15/2014 10:33:43 AM PDT by jazusamo (Sometimes I think that this is an era when sanity has become controversial: Thomas Sowell)
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To: jazusamo

It’s just a stage kids go through. When kids decide they want to start talking, they will. My oldest son didn’t start talking until he was over 2YO, after that, he has never shut up.


3 posted on 09/15/2014 10:36:07 AM PDT by factoryrat (We are the producers, the creators. Grow it, mine it, build it.)
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To: factoryrat

yup once they start talking they never shut up.


4 posted on 09/15/2014 10:37:40 AM PDT by Col Frank Slade
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To: jazusamo

You don’t talk enough, you’re an idiot.

You talk too much and your ADS, and they drug you.

You may have survived the abortion phase, but there’s still a rough road ahead.

Not the least of which, is attending a school where the adults discount the value of the nation you were blessed to be born in.

Good luck keeping it, if it manages to survive until you actually can contribute to keeping it around longer.


5 posted on 09/15/2014 10:42:46 AM PDT by DoughtyOne (Obama and the Left are maggots feeding off the flesh of the United States.)
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To: factoryrat

Lots of times the older sibling does all the talking for them.


6 posted on 09/15/2014 10:43:39 AM PDT by DoughtyOne (Obama and the Left are maggots feeding off the flesh of the United States.)
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To: DoughtyOne

It boggles the mind how leftist commie libs believe they and government are who should raise our kids, screw ‘em.


7 posted on 09/15/2014 10:47:12 AM PDT by jazusamo (Sometimes I think that this is an era when sanity has become controversial: Thomas Sowell)
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To: Col Frank Slade

You’ve just described my lovely daughter ;-)


8 posted on 09/15/2014 10:47:45 AM PDT by Impala64ssa (You call me an islamophobe like it's a bad thing.)
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To: jazusamo

this is a great book


9 posted on 09/15/2014 10:48:53 AM PDT by Chickensoup (Leftist totalitarian fascism is on the move.)
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To: Chickensoup

Thanks, I thought it would be, Sowell doesn’t endorse unless whatever it is worthwhile.

Sowell also wrote a book with the same title in 1998.


10 posted on 09/15/2014 10:55:09 AM PDT by jazusamo (Sometimes I think that this is an era when sanity has become controversial: Thomas Sowell)
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To: jazusamo

Two things:

Look at their kids

Look where they send their kids

The well healed Leftists aren’t sending their kids to public school.

Their kids wind up being the warped out extenders of the global warming, racism is alive and well, the U. S. is the enemy of the planet, and more... mantra’s of the religion of Leftism.


11 posted on 09/15/2014 10:56:58 AM PDT by DoughtyOne (Obama and the Left are maggots feeding off the flesh of the United States.)
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To: factoryrat

My daughter was a late talker - she talked when she was ready to talk - and hasn’t shut up since!! (she’s now 23 and I couldn’t ask for a better daughter).

My son read late - it was not until 5th grade that he really got the hang of it and to this day he is a slow reader.

I come from a family of scientists, chemists, physicists, doctors and university professors of engineering - the ALL told me they couldn’t read until they were around 10 years old and to let him be until he was ready to read. And that is exactly what I did - kid is now studying electrical engineering and computer science at a UC.


12 posted on 09/15/2014 10:57:28 AM PDT by Bon of Babble (Tired? There's a napp for that!!)
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To: jazusamo

Everything is going alright for the kid so far. He has nothing to complain about.

http://youtu.be/y_NXC9Vv2vg


13 posted on 09/15/2014 10:58:28 AM PDT by PATRIOT1876
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To: jazusamo

My son decided to teach his son ASL when he was turning 2. It seemed to switch on the light - words and actions were connected! His spoken vocabulary increased by leaps and bounds as his ASL vocabulary expanded. He got used to watching us make, and then explain each gesture. So, I turned one day to realize he was watching as I scratched an itch - and had to explain that this particular sign means my nose itches!


14 posted on 09/15/2014 10:58:30 AM PDT by knittnmom (Save the earth! It's the only planet with chocolate!)
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To: jazusamo

Too true. One of mine didn’t walk or talk at eighteen months and was scheduled for testing.

Within one month, he started walking, running and has not shut up to this day. We are reduced to half listening interjecting, isn’t that something, wow, how about that.

He’s a brilliant engineer and works on development projects.

His wife is also an engineer.

Boy do I feel stupid around them!


15 posted on 09/15/2014 11:12:33 AM PDT by OpusatFR (I did make that. No one else did the work.)
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To: Bon of Babble

I wonder if it has something to do with engineers’ brain patterns?

Mine too. I have three engineers, all different disciplines though.

They are different, think differently from the rabble of which I am one.


16 posted on 09/15/2014 11:14:20 AM PDT by OpusatFR (I did make that. No one else did the work.)
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To: factoryrat
When kids decide they want to start talking, they will. My oldest son didn’t start talking until he was over 2YO, after that, he has never shut up.

My eldest daughter was talking very early on; but, my youngest daughter took her time about it. She never even did that baby-talk babbling kind of thing. It did have me worried.

So, I was out someplace and struck up a conversation with someone I knew and I mentioned that she hadn't really started talking yet, and that I was a little worried. An elderly woman sitting nearby, looked up and said exactly what you just posted. "Oh, those take a while to start; but, when they do start they never shut up." And, it was quite true.

She is now 26 years old, and is living in Japan teaching English and traveling all around the area. She is very intelligent and self-sufficient. So, she just did it on her own timetable; and, really, she is like that with everything. She sets her own pace, listens to her own drummer.

17 posted on 09/15/2014 11:14:38 AM PDT by LibertarianLiz
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To: factoryrat

There is a joke about a couple that was worried that their child was 5 years old and hadn’t talked yet.
One night at the dinner table, the boy said “please pass the salt”.
His parents were astounded and greatly excited. After some conversation, they asked the boy why he didn’t talk until now.
He said “well, up until now, everything was going fine”.


18 posted on 09/15/2014 11:15:18 AM PDT by MrB (The difference between a Humanist and a Satanist - the latter admits whom he's working for)
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To: jazusamo

One of my grandsons was late to talk. When he finally started, it was in complete sentences. He is extremely voluble now. It seemed as if he were trying out all the sounds, practicing them, until he felt he had it right. In the meantime he was absorbing grammar from his mother who speaks excellent English, which she didn’t learn from her father, alas.


19 posted on 09/15/2014 11:26:11 AM PDT by arthurus (Read Hazlitt's Economics In One Lesson ONLINE http://steshaw.org/economics-in-one-lesson/)
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To: factoryrat

There was a classic Hi & Lois cartoon that said it all.

Baby next to Trixie is babbling away. Trixie has a thought bubble over her head that that says something like: “I’ll talk when my speech is equal to my cognitive abilities.”

Ours had very little to say until well after 18 months. She is quite intelligent and certainly has no difficulty holding up her end of the conversation now. /grin


20 posted on 09/15/2014 11:27:50 AM PDT by ChildOfThe60s ((If you can remember the 60s.....you weren't really there)
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