There are many reasons for speech delay in children who are almost 1 and a half to two years old. Three major reasons for this could be - prenatal, perinatal, postnatal. Following could be the reasons for speech delay during the three periods:
Prenatal Period - indicates the period when the child is in the womb. Reasons could be whether the mother had any abortion or miscarriage before the conception of this child, degree of consanguinity, any infection in the mother at the time of carrying like TORCHE-S, Fever, Jaundice etc.
Perinatal Period - Perinatal means at the time of delivery. This type includes whether the child is born at full-term (40 weeks) or pre -term (before 38 weeks) or Post-term (after 40 weeks), type of birth includes Normal delivery or C- section or breeched or forceps. Birth weight, Birth color, bilirubin level (jaundice) etc.
Postnatal Period - includes any other head injury or seizural condition, any high grade fever or family history of any delayed speech development etc., Beyond all this reasons there are also some idiopathic causes for delayed speech development. Poor stimulating environment also stands for the reason for this. The child should be noted at the age of 1 year itself because normal language development indicates that he/she should start speaking in 1 word sentence at 1 year of age and asks for their needs verbally etc.,
These speech delays can be treated by a speech therapist with the use of appropriate techniques.