Pandemic Babies and Speech

[Anonymous]

DS (second kid) was born in mid-summer of 2020 and has been in daycare since fall 2020. He has lots of conversations with me, and plenty of voice inflection, but only has actual words for me, DH, and the dog. His sister was a late talker and now will not stop talking, so for the past couple months I’ve been taking a wait and see approach. Listening to muffled speech from masking obviously doesn’t help.

Is anyone else’s pandemic baby in the same boat? What’s the wait on an evaluation these days?

[Anonymous]

DS was born January 2020. He is 20 days shy of two years old. He gets shy at first with new people (doesn't see a lot) but once he talks is basically understandable. Occasionally we have to ask him to repeat things but I chalk that up to being bilingual.

[Anonymous]

Are you in DC? I’ve been doing speech evals/therapy and hearing tests at Gallaudet for my 2 year old. The wait for a strong start evaluation was pretty quick, probably a month from when I first contacted them to getting results. Gallaudet, I can usually book an appointment a month out. Private speech evaluation and therapy was pretty quick to set up (my kid just barely squeaked passed qualifying for services, but it’s still unclear if he has some hearing loss).

For what it’s worth every audiologist and speech therapist we’ve seen has said there’s been a big uptick in speech delays, so you (we) are definitely not alone.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:Are you in DC? I’ve been doing speech evals/therapy and hearing tests at Gallaudet for my 2 year old. The wait for a strong start evaluation was pretty quick, probably a month from when I first contacted them to getting results. Gallaudet, I can usually book an appointment a month out. Private speech evaluation and therapy was pretty quick to set up (my kid just barely squeaked passed qualifying for services, but it’s still unclear if he has some hearing loss).

For what it’s worth every audiologist and speech therapist we’ve seen has said there’s been a big uptick in speech delays, so you (we) are definitely not alone.

We live 10 min from Gallaudet so this is very helpful.

[Anonymous]

DD#2 was born May 2020 and has been in daycare since August 2020. All. caregivers at her daycare are masked, of course. In comparison to our older DD, there’s definitely a speech delay…but I’m not sure I would have noticed it if our older DD hadn’t been so verbal from an early age. We have noticed a bit of a language explosion from DD#2 in the last month or so, though. I addressed this concern with our pediatrician at her 18mo appointment and was told that I should call back for a referral if we didn’t notice any progress within the next 2 to 3 months.
I’ve made a very concerted effort to narrate everything I do with her at home. I did the same with our first DD, but I’ve gone overboard with our second, trying to compensate for the fact that she spends the majority of her waking hours each day around masked caregivers.

[Anonymous]

My kid was born in Jan 2020 and started daycare (caregivers masked) in Nov 2020. I was worried about her speech (basically no words at 15 months and no real effort to verbally communicate at 18 months) but these days she’s talking a lot. Her diction isn’t great but she’s also not quite two and I mostly understand her. She’s my eldest though so I don’t really have a point of comparison. I hope her speech keeps on improving once she and the other kids start having to mail at daycare next month. To think I figured it would all be over by the time she was old enough to need a mask…

[Anonymous]

This has nothing to do with covid, but get a speech evaluation. The wait and see works with some kids and can really harm other kids.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:This has nothing to do with covid, but get a speech evaluation. The wait and see works with some kids and can really harm other kids.

I don’t really think it’s fair to declare that this has nothing to do with covid. We just don’t know. Kids are isolated and constantly around masked people. Of course this could result in speech delay. To suggest otherwise is just ignoring one possible cause.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:This has nothing to do with covid, but get a speech evaluation. The wait and see works with some kids and can really harm other kids.

I don’t really think it’s fair to declare that this has nothing to do with covid. We just don’t know. Kids are isolated and constantly around masked people. Of course this could result in speech delay. To suggest otherwise is just ignoring one possible cause.

+1 why do people make these proclamations about topics they know nothing about? Plenty of anecdotal evidence of an uptick in speech delays. I think this is just the tip of the iceberg.

[Anonymous]

It absolutely has to do with masking in infant rooms in daycare! How could it not? Our babies spent 8 hours a day not seeing mouths form words or expressions.

Yes, my toddler is being evaluated for speech delays. I was told he’d be delayed and he is.

[Anonymous]

March 2020 baby who was home with me (so not with masked caregivers) while I worked PT.

She was referred to Early Intervention at 15 months (!) because she had NO words, not even mama. A few months went by because of the understandable wait with the county and eventually they put her with a developmental therapist rather than an SLP because they felt she also did not understand anything. A couple months later she really blossomed when it came to receptive language and also gradually started using some words. Perhaps we will "graduate" to an SLP soon rather than a development therapist. She's 21 months now and isn't anywhere close to using sentences or even two words at a time.

Anyway, yes, I believe the isolation from the pandemic is contributing to this, as does our therapist.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:This has nothing to do with covid, but get a speech evaluation. The wait and see works with some kids and can really harm other kids.

I don’t really think it’s fair to declare that this has nothing to do with covid. We just don’t know. Kids are isolated and constantly around masked people. Of course this could result in speech delay. To suggest otherwise is just ignoring one possible cause.

+1 why do people make these proclamations about topics they know nothing about? Plenty of anecdotal evidence of an uptick in speech delays. I think this is just the tip of the iceberg.

Because some of our kids have language disorders and we've spent a lot of time and money getting it treated. Why do you assume we know nothing about it? One of my kids was in 4 day a week private speech therapy for many years.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:This has nothing to do with covid, but get a speech evaluation. The wait and see works with some kids and can really harm other kids.

I don’t really think it’s fair to declare that this has nothing to do with covid. We just don’t know. Kids are isolated and constantly around masked people. Of course this could result in speech delay. To suggest otherwise is just ignoring one possible cause.

+1 why do people make these proclamations about topics they know nothing about? Plenty of anecdotal evidence of an uptick in speech delays. I think this is just the tip of the iceberg.

Because some of our kids have language disorders and we've spent a lot of time and money getting it treated. Why do you assume we know nothing about it? One of my kids was in 4 day a week private speech therapy for many years.

NP here. Because no one know the effect of masked daycare caregivers on very young babies. I agree with an earlier poster - it has to have a negative effect on speech not to see adults form words. Is it temporary? No one knows.

[Anonymous]

Some poster here (many months ago) predicted that babies in daycare would most likely need speech intervention and he/she was flamed and mocked for it.

He/she may well be correct.

[Anonymous]

My summer 2020 baby is home with me and doesn’t have many words. We are in a wait and see pattern until his 18M appt right now. He really only says mama, papa, and about 4 animal sounds, but the animal sounds have to be prompted “what does a duck say?” - it’s not like he’s saying “quack” every time he identifies a duck in a book (or really ever unprompted). That said, his receptive language is fantastic and he’s processing hearing 2 languages at home so could just be that his expressive will catch up soon.

We try to get out and do as much as we can in outdoor settings but yeah I do also worry that the isolation and not doing much in terms of library story time, meet ups with other moms, etc. could be contributing too. There’s only so much f’ing narrating I can do in a day. We do read TONS though.