Assessment of Speech and Language of Internationally Adopted Children

Our speech-language pathologists provide comprehensive assessments and intervention services for internationally adopted children who have speech and language delays as well as feeding difficulties.

Some children living in orphanages have a history of negative feeding experiences which directly impact their eating and swallowing development. A feeding assessment may be needed if your child continues to have difficulty chewing and eating. Factors to consider:

• When a child is first exposed to a second language, they may go through a silent period. The child focuses on listening and understanding their new language. This period can last up to a year.
• Age of adoption - the younger the child is adopted the faster they will develop age-appropriate skills in their new language.
• Education levels of parents - most parents who adopt children provide a language rich environment which facilitates language learning.
• Medical considerations such as low birth weight, genetic syndromes, cleft palate, fetal alcohol syndrome, etc all affect speech/language development.
• The child's environment prior to adoption directly affects their language development. Moreover, otitis media (ear infections) often goes untreated resulting in decreased exposure to language during prime language acquisition years. Also, some children receive minimal social interaction and stimulation.
• Chronic stress can lead to later difficulty with memory storage and retrieval as well as difficulties with executive functions (multitasking, planning, sequencing events) and abstract thinking (i.e. inferences, seeing big picture, etc).

If you have specific questions about your child or would like to talk to a speech-language pathologist, please call one of our four locations.