When to Teach a Developmentally Delayed Child to Imitate Consonant Sounds

by Mary
(New Jersey)

Scenario: A child with a moderate hearing loss and significant developmental delays (age 7; overall functioning around 1.5 - 2 years).

Has a limited expressive vocabulary consisting of some labels and some exclamations.

In home therapy is working on imitation of selected consonant sounds (e.g. "b", "w" "h", "d") He invariably makes a whole word, and does not imitate just the consonant sound. So "Say "wa" produces "wow" or woah"; Say "hhh" results in "hah".

My questions:

1. Is it important for this child to produce isolated sounds at this point in his development?

2. Is it important for a child to be able to produce isolated sounds instead of words? IF so when and why?

3. What would be a priority speech skill for such a child?