Speech Therapy Before a Child Can Speak

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Your pediatrician, friend, or other health professional recommended that you see a speech therapist for your infant. Say what?! 

If we polled 10 speech therapists, we’d bet that at least 9 out of 10 would describe a time when another assumed they “just help kids learn to say their sounds right.” While our job title certainly makes this confusing, the reality is an SLP’s scope is wider than it may seem. An SLP’s work includes the diagnosis and treatment of speech, language, cognitive, social, communicative, and swallowing dysfunction “from the cradle to the grave.”

A lesser known domain of the speech-language pathologist’s (SLP) role is that of a feeding and swallowing professional. Even the tiniest baby sucks and swallows, so an SLP can help from day one of life!

Today we’ll highlight how an SLP can help the child that is not yet speaking, babies from birth to around 1 year. 

Unfortunately, not many families know that help is available to them when their infant is experiencing problems relative to eating and swallowing, including pain with breastfeeding, coughing or choking, gastrointestinal dysfunction, breathing difficulties, movement pattern concerns, poor weight gain, and more. The SLP’s ability to help is even lesser known for the baby having a difficult time transitioning from breast or bottle feeding to solid foods. 

The incidence and prevalence of pediatric feeding and swallowing disorders is tough to determine due to factors including variations in the conditions and populations researched and how feeding disorders and/or swallowing impairment are defined. The research we do have suggests that approximately 20-50% of normally developing children and 70-89% of children with developmental disabilities are reported to experience some type of feeding problems (Benjasuwantep et al, 2013).

That’s a lot of babies struggling to eat! 

These struggles may look like a baby who…

  • has difficulty breastfeeding / exhibits any of the following:

    • causes pain while latching 

    • latches shallow and “chomps” on breast

    • coughs/chokes

    • falls asleep quickly at breast

    • loses latch easily 

    • becomes frustrated or fussy while feeding

    • unsatisfied after feeding

  • has difficulty bottle feeding / exhibits any of the following:

    • struggles to accept a bottle

    • coughs/chokes

    • spills milk from mouth 

    • falls asleep quickly 

    • takes longer than 30 minutes to feed

  • has difficulty transitioning from breast or bottle feeding to solid foods / exhibits any of the following:

    • excessive and persistent gagging on new textures that may lead to vomiting 

    • refusing spoon feeding / turning head away from spoon consistently 

    • disengagement/refusal shown by facial grimacing, facial flushing, finger splaying, or head turning away from food source

    • pocketing foods / “chipmunk cheeks” 

    • taking in only very small amounts of foods

  • has noisy / wet / rattly vocal quality during or right after feedings 

  • gains weight slowly

  • struggles with gastrointestinal issues [reflux, frequent spit up, gassiness]

The SLP is well-versed in taking a deeper dive into these listed symptoms and helping you understand what they mean. Your clinician works to understand your child’s unique history, determine the etiology of your child’s struggles (dynamic assessment), develop an action plan for progress (comprehensive treatment), and involve necessary members for a multidisciplinary team-based approach to care. 

Every baby is different, so there’s not a one-size-fits-all approach to improving symptoms… which is why an individualized assessment is the best way to find help for your little one. 

If any of these symptoms sound familiar to you, our SLP team can help!