How to Talk to Your Baby               by Dorothy Dougherty         Order the Book Excerpt: Communication Puzzlers -  Normal Versus Delayed Language Development "Between 2 and 3, there is tremendous variability in what's normal," says Catherine Snow, PhD. Her research revealed that there are two-year-old children with vocabularies of 2,000 words and three-year-old children with vocabularies of only 150 words. To understand development, speech/language professionals study how and when language skills develop in children. There is not much variation in the "how" because children tend to develop  language skills in a certain order. For example, they usually  have about 50 single words in their expressive vocabularies before they begin to put two words together. However, the "when" - that is, at what age children acquire each language skill - may vary enormously. Even experts sometimes cannot agree on what is "normal." Since many factors can affect language learning, either slowing it down or enhancing it, children often develop at a slower or  faster rate than what is expected. Because of the enormous  variation in what is considered "normal," children who are not  quite on schedule may not necessarily be delayed, but instead  may be following their own individual timetable. However, a  baby's understanding and expression of the language skills should be growing and developing on a continuous basis. There is certainly cause to be concerned if a child suddenly stops talking or doesn't seem to understand or be learning new words. It is also important to keep in mind that speech is not the same as language. A child with a language delay may be able to say all the speech sounds clearly, but doesn't say many words or  doesn't understand words and phrases, and use them to talk,  but has trouble saying the sounds in the words correctly. Because people have difficulty understanding this child, they may assume that she knows less than she really does.  In reality, writes Naomi S. Baron, professor of linguistics at American University, Washington, DC, a child who has  difficulty with speech may use the same sound to indicate several different words. For example, she may say "ma" in place of "milk," "mother," and "mug." She may understand the meanings of the words "milk," "mother," and "mug," but cannot use her tongue and lips to form the correct sounds. The listener may understand anyway, however, because of the child's use of gestures or the presence of the object to which she is referring (milk, her mother, or a mug). And, according to Professor Baron, if this child obviously uses "ma" to mean three different things, then "ma" counts as three separate words. Page 2 Order the Book