When your child doesn't speak

The hardest period is the one where nothing has been named yet. The child is two, three, four years old, doesn't speak or says a few words, and all around you hear “boys speak later” and “my brother also started at five”. Sometimes that's true. Sometimes it's a lost year.

The safe rule is this: observation can always be stopped; lost time cannot be recovered. Early support does not harm a child who would have started speaking anyway. Lack of support harms the one who would not.

What to do first

• Get a hearing test. It is the first step with any speech delay — hearing loss can be quiet and easy to miss.
• See a speech therapist and a paediatrician, even if you hear “let's wait”. Ask for the observation to be noted in the records and for a follow-up date.
• Register with an assessment or early-intervention centre. Waiting lists are long, and signing up commits you to nothing.
• Record short videos. Two minutes of ordinary play will tell a specialist more than an hour in a strange office where the child goes quiet anyway.
• Start giving your child a way to communicate now — gestures, photos, symbols, an app. Don't wait for a diagnosis. A diagnosis names the problem; it does not create communication.

And one more thing: absence of speech is not absence of understanding. Very many children understand far more than they can show. Talk to your child normally, narrate what you are doing — even without an answer.

AAC (Augmentative and Alternative Communication, in German Unterstützte Kommunikation) is any way of communicating other than speech. It covers very different things: gestures and sign language, pointing, picture cards, communication books, tablets with an app and specialised speech devices.

The key distinction: augmentative means “adding to the speech that is already there”, alternative means “replacing the speech that is missing”. The same tool can play both roles at different moments of a child's life.

The most common misunderstandings

• “It's for children who will never speak.” No — AAC is often a transitional stage and a bridge to speech.
• “My child is too young.” Children reach for symbols before they start speaking, just as they point before their first word.
• “First they must master the basics.” There is no entry threshold. We learn to communicate by communicating, not by passing a readiness exam.

An important practical rule: the tool must be available all day long. A board locked in a cupboard and taken out for a 20-minute session is not the child's voice — it is an exercise. A voice is something you always have with you, including when you want to complain or say something completely off-topic.

The fear sounds logical: if the child gets an easier way, they will stop trying to speak. It is intuitive — and not confirmed by research.

The most frequently cited review on this topic (Millar, Light and Schlosser, 2006, published in the Journal of Speech, Language, and Hearing Research) analysed studies of people with developmental disabilities using AAC. The conclusion: in the vast majority speech did not get worse, and in a significant proportion it improved. Cases of deterioration were practically not recorded. Later reviews point in the same direction.

Why is that? Probably because a symbol shown together with a spoken word acts as an extra cue — the child hears the word linked to a picture and to a concrete effect. And there is something simpler: a child who is finally understood communicates more, and more communication means more opportunities to speak.

What this means in practice

• You don't have to choose between speech therapy and AAC — they are not competing paths.
• Always say the word out loud when the child touches a tile. The sound model is part of the learning.
• Accept every form: a sound, a gesture, a tile, a word. They all count as an utterance.

Research talks about groups, not about your particular child. What is best for yours, decide together with a specialist who knows them.

Imagine teaching someone a new language while never speaking it yourself — only quizzing them. That is exactly what we do when we hand the child a board and ask “show me what you want”, never touching it ourselves.

Modelling means the adult uses the symbols themselves in ordinary situations: they say “I'm eating” and touch the “eat” tile, say “we're going” and touch “go”. No quizzing, no demanding repetition. Just as we talk to a baby long before it answers.

How to model so that it works

• Talk about what is happening now. Bath, food, going out — everyday routines are the best lesson, because they repeat endlessly.
• Add one element more. The child shows “juice” — you show “want juice”. The child shows “want juice” — you show “want more juice”.
• Don't quiz. Instead of “where is drink?” say “I'm drinking”. Testing discourages, a model encourages.
• Wait. After your utterance, count to ten in your head. Children with delayed processing need that silence — adults fill it too quickly.
• React to every attempt. Treat even an accidental touch as an utterance and respond. Agency is born from answers.

It is a slow method. The first weeks can look as if nothing is happening. The effect usually comes suddenly — after several hundred repetitions that nobody was counting.

The natural instinct is to fill the board with food, toys and animals. Those words are easy to draw — but narrow. “Banana” is useful at breakfast and never again.

Speech therapy uses the concept of core vocabulary (German Kernvokabular): a small group of words that make up most of everyday utterances — “I”, “you”, “want”, “no”, “more”, “finished”, “this”, “go”, “give”, “help”. Analyses of everyday speech show that a few dozen such words cover a huge share of what we say every day.

Why this works better

• They fit everywhere. “More” works with food, the swing, a cartoon and a cuddle.
• They let the child refuse and stop. “No” and “finished” are the most important words for a child who until now could only protest by screaming.
• They combine into sentences. You cannot build an utterance from nouns; from core words you can.

A good start is about ten to twenty words — including a few nouns from the child's genuine favourites, because motivation is fuel. The rest can wait. But don't remove the other tiles from view: the child should see that language is bigger than what they can do today.

When a child has no words, they use what works. Screaming works. Throwing a plate works. Hitting works fastest of all. This is not malice or being “spoilt” — it is communication in the only form available.

Behaviour almost always carries one of a few messages:

• “I want this” — access to something.
• “Stop / I don't want to” — escape from a task, noise, touch.
• “Notice me” — attention.
• “It hurts / too much” — pain, hunger, tiredness, sensory overload.

A practical way to work: for a week, briefly note down what came before, what happened and what came after. After a few days a pattern usually appears. Then you look for an easier route for that message than screaming — a “finished”, “break”, “don't want”, “it hurts” tile.

A necessary condition: the new route must work just as fast. If the child shows “break” and we answer “just five more minutes”, we have just proved that screaming is more effective. At the beginning, honour the request immediately, even if it is inconvenient. You will negotiate later.

A sudden change in behaviour can be a sign of pain or illness. If something changes abruptly, first rule out medical causes with a doctor.

Communication boards have used colour coding for decades, known as the Fitzgerald key. Symbols are grouped by the function of the word, and each group has a fixed colour — one for actions, another for people, another for things, another for descriptions and questions.

The child doesn't need to know what a verb is. They learn something simpler: “doing words are green”, “people are yellow”. The eyes land in the right area before the search for the specific picture even starts. That shortens the road to the word — and in communication every second counts, because a conversation doesn't wait.

The second rule: a fixed place

Just as important as colour is that a symbol does not wander. If “more” is always in the same corner, the child eventually reaches there by reflex, just as we type without looking. Rearranging tiles “to tidy up” undoes that learning.

Photo or symbol?

Photos are easier at the start, but very concrete — a photo of this cup means only this cup. A symbol is more abstract, but covers the whole category and lets the child talk about things that are not nearby. A good board often combines the two: photos for people and personal items, symbols for the rest.

Adults move through time with words: “in a minute”, “after lunch”, “on Friday”. A child who does not understand these concepts lives in constant surprise — and surprise, for a child with communication difficulties, very often ends in a crisis.

A visual plan is simply a row of pictures showing the order of events. It can hang on the fridge or live on the tablet. It doesn't have to cover the whole day — to begin with, three or four steps of the hardest part are enough, for example leaving the house.

What makes a plan work

• Short and concrete. Three to five pictures. Twenty is wallpaper.
• Remove or tick off what is done. A visible “done” is half the effect.
• Always show what comes next. Especially after disliked things — “first brushing teeth, then a cartoon”.
• Warn about changes. When the plan falls apart, show it on the plan instead of explaining in words.

A daily plan and a communication board are two different things that complement each other well: the plan tells the child what is coming, and the board lets them answer — including “I don't want to”.

The typical scenario: at home the child uses the board, at nursery it stays in the backpack. After a few weeks the child stops reaching for it at home too — because they have learnt that for half the day it doesn't work anyway.

How to talk to the institution

• Come with a ready, simple description. One page: what it is, how to switch it on, the five words the child uses most, and how to respond.
• Ask for one responsible person. When a task belongs to everyone, it belongs to no one.
• Suggest one situation to start with — for example just mealtimes. A narrow start is easier to accept than “please use it all day”.
• Ask for brief feedback, even one sentence in a notebook. Teachers engage more when they see the effect.
• Get it written into the child's documents — whatever the local equivalent of an education or support plan is. What is written down carries over to the next year and the next teacher.

In bilingual families there is also the question of language. It is worth saying plainly that the child uses two languages and that the home language does not interfere with learning the school language. In Moj Glosik the same tile speaks one language at home and another at nursery — the child learns one layout, not two.

The systems in the two countries are different, and Polish families in Germany often move between them. Below are starting points — this is not legal advice, and rules and names change, so confirm the details with your local authority, assessment centre or health insurer.

Poland

• Psychological-pedagogical counselling centre (poradnia) — free, no referral needed. Issues opinions and assessments, including the need for special education.
• Early development support (WWR) — free sessions for young children based on an opinion from the counselling centre.
• Speech therapy and early intervention under NFZ — ask your GP or paediatrician for a referral and the nearest centre.
• AAC organisations — the “Mówić bez Słów” association (the Polish chapter of ISAAC) runs training and lists of specialists.

Germany

• Frühförderstelle / Sozialpädiatrisches Zentrum (SPZ) — the first place to go with a suspected developmental delay; referral usually from the paediatrician.
• Logopädie on prescription — prescribed by a doctor, paid for by the health insurer.
• Beratungsstellen für Unterstützte Kommunikation — AAC counselling centres attached to special-needs centres and schools; they help choose a tool.
• Gesellschaft für Unterstützte Kommunikation (GesUK) — the German AAC organisation, training and contacts.
• Communication devices as Hilfsmittel — the health insurer can fund certified communication equipment (a talker) after a doctor's recommendation, a specialist assessment and a trial period. The procedure is long; it pays to start early.

Note: the above applies to devices listed in the register of assistive devices (Hilfsmittelverzeichnis) that undergo medical assessment. Moj Glosik is not a medical device, has not undergone such an assessment and is not reimbursed by health insurers or the NFZ. It is an ordinary app that you buy yourself — which is why it costs what it costs.

And one thing rarely mentioned at the first visit: take care of yourself too. Parent groups — including Polish-speaking ones in Germany — give you things no institution can: concrete tips and the knowledge that you are not alone in this.