How speech and language develops

This pyramid shows the building blocks of language development. Children need to develop skills in each of the different areas shown in order to communicate. At an initial speech and language therapy assessment the therapist will evaluate how your child is doing in each of these areas, compared to what would be expected for their age. This will enable the therapist to identify which areas (if any) need to be targeted in therapy to help your child to communicate better.

Each area of the pyramid has its own order of development and so the skills which children have are dependent on their age.

Each layer of the pyramid also supports the development of the layer above it. If a child has not developed a lower layer as expected they will often have difficulty developing the layers above.

Some children have difficulty with attention and listening skills. This is the very bottom layer of the pyramid and so difficulties in this area will affect all the skills above it.