Ms Vickie Kirkpatrick:

We might look at child development and the developmental process, whether in terms of speech and language therapy or other health and social care professions.

In the context of child development and speech and language, one must remember that all social interaction is based around communication. If communication is not happening and parents are not learning strategies to facilitate it, there are considerable risks for additional learning, beginning school, literacy levels and so on. It is important to be aware not just of developmental language disorders but also other physical milestones being missed. We must look at the whole child. Child development can be assessed through play, motor skills and language. While we do not have a crystal ball in terms of what will happen as children with speech and language difficulties grow up, there is strong evidence to suggest that there will be serious repercussions in terms of achieving in school and so on.