Does Your Child Have Global Developmental Delay?
Our Expert Speech & Language Therapists Provide Evidence Based, Quality Therapy to Help Children With Global Developmental Delay
Some Facts About Global Developmental Delay (GDD)
Global Developmental Delay is a term used to describe a condition that delays physical and cognitive development in children between birth and 18 years.
To have a diagnosis of Global Developmental Delay, a child must have delayed development in two separate areas. Generally, these areas relate to motor skills (movement), cognitive skills, speech and language, and social and emotional skills.
It is important to remember that milestones are an approximate measure of typical progress. Every child is different and not hitting a developmental milestone at the exact expected rate is not a cause for immediate worry!
Global Developmental Delay can result from genetic factors (such as Down’s Syndrome), premature birth or childhood illness. However, it is very common that no single or discernible cause of GDD is found.
Sometimes children with GDD may receive therapeutic input and ‘catch up’ with their peers. In other cases, people may be affected throughout their life and benefit from varying levels of support and care.
Children with Global Developmental Delay Can Struggle With:
Reaching physical or movement milestones at the same rate as their peers. This doesn’t mean necessarily that they won’t reach the milestones in their own time.
Developing their understanding and use of language at the same rate as their peers. This might become more evident when the child starts nursery or school.
Forming friendships with peers their own age, if their social skills are not developed to the same or similar level.
Learning new things. The curriculum may not be suitable for the child’s developmental level which can make it difficult for them to learn if not given the appropriate support.
Children with Global Developmental Delay and Communication Skills
Here are some of the ways that good speech and language therapy can help children with Global Developmental Delay and their families:
Supporting the child to develop their understanding of language.
Supporting this child to develop their use of language and express their wants, needs, ideas and feelings.
Facilitating better access to learning by supporting the team around the child and the child with specific strategies.
Supporting speech sound development where appropriate to make the child’s speech easier to understand.
Providing support and advice to the child’s family and education team to support their communication.
Signposting families to complementary therapies as appropriate.
Signposting families to appropriate and reliable sources of information and support.
Tips for Parents on How to Support Children with Global Developmental Delay
When communicating with your child, support your language with visual cues as much as possible - for example, use pictures, objects, Sign or gestures, pointing, facial expressions, and so on. Spoken words disappear quickly, whereas visual cues last longer or can be permanent.
If you’d like to learn some basic Signs to use with your child, watching ‘Something Special’ (Mr Tumble) on CBeebies is a great place to start – watch the programme together and practice your Signs!
Copy sounds, words and signs back to your child when they attempt to communicate. Always model the correct pronunciation/ word/ sign even if your child has made a slight error in theirs, but don’t make your child copy you.
Be enthusiastic! Using lots of praise, expressive intonation and exaggerated facial expressions will support your child to be engaged in communicating with you.
Be responsive to any attempts your child makes to communicate – remembering that this might look like different behaviours as well as sounds, words and gestures.
Repetition is key! When we learn new words we need to hear them lots of times in context to understand their meaning. Try choosing one key word per day to focus on and repeat it lots of times.
Match your spoken language level to be appropriate for your child’s development. If they are using 1-2 words to communicate, use 2-3 words when speaking to them. This can support them to develop language in manageable steps.
Use the 5 finger rule – aim to comment on what your child is doing 4 times before asking them a question. For example; “big car! (1) ......driving the car (2)......broom broom crash! (3).....it’s red (4).......what’s this one?”.
How Our Speech and Language Therapy Can Help Children With Global Developmental Delay
We assess each child’s needs holistically and design our treatment plans around the unique needs of each child. At the centre of everything we do are the goals, aspirations and expectations of the child and their family.
Here are some of the many evidence-based therapy approaches and frameworks we are specially trained to use to help children with Global Developmental Delay develop their communication skills:
BSL, Makaton and Signalong Sign Language
Total Communication and AAC approaches
Intensive Interaction
Attention Autism (for joint attention skills)
Talking Mats
SMILE (Strategies and measurable interaction with Live English)
The Zones of Regulation
Parent Child Interaction for early language development
Hanen Programmes
Narrative Intervention Programme
Colourful Semantics and Shape Coding
Elklan
Word Aware
Caroline Bowen speech sound disorders and childhood apraxia of speech
How Can We Help You and Your Child?
If you’re interested in how our expert speech and language therapy can help your child with Global Developmental Delay, click below to request a free telephone consultation with one of our therapists or to book an initial assessment appointment. We will assess your child’s strengths and needs and design a therapy package to suit your child’s unique learning style, and your budget. We can also support children and young people in the over one hundred schools that commission our schools speech and language therapy service.
