What to do if a child does not obey at the age of 2

The age of 2 is a difficult period for a child and its parents. The baby is actively developing vital skills of movement, self-service and, of course, speech. Normally, the 2 years old child clearly understands adult speech, performs basic instructions, and points at the named objects. By the age of 1.5 the baby’s word stock runs up to 40–70 words, and the 2 years old baby already uses up to 300 words. Usually from the age of 3 the child begins to actively interact with his/her parents.

Quite often adults notice the behavior deterioration during this period. Sometimes a child may disobey, may not hear requests and appeals, or even not respond to his own name. Sometimes this is a consequence of miseducation, but such symptoms may indicate psychoverbal development disorders.

The child does not obey at the age of 2: reasons

Let’s take the key reasons why child may be without responding to the speech addressed to him. They are divided into socio-psychological and physiological ones.

The following factors can be attributed to the first group of factors.

• No need for speech. This can happen in two other cases. On the first hand, when parents barely speak with their child, he/she spends a lot of time in front of TV or computer – there’s simply no one to talk to. On the second hand, when parents tend to say everything for their child, predict their desires by gestures and sounds, they formulate simple questions that can be answered just “yes/no” – then the kid simply has no need to respond to speech.
• Prolong baby talk. During the first year of life, diminutive words and their conscious distortion are difficult to refuse. But as soon as the baby’s speech apparatus begins its brisk growth, one should forget about such a manner of speaking. At this age the child is a sponge that absorbs t communicative habits of its parents. The way you communicate with your baby will subsequently take root in his/her mind as a standard. Therefore, the child will perceive usual everyday speech incorrectly. Hence is the incorrect or missing reaction.
• Unfavorable family climate (incomplete family, absence of parents, asocial parents), constant parental scandals.
• Parents’ speech and environment. If an adult speech around child is fluent, fast, fuzzy, the children are not able to understand it.
• Excessive child’s exactingness. The baby’s brain develops gradually. Forcing this process may cause the opposite effect that will lead to failure. Remember: standards of verbal and mental development are an average figure. Deviation from them is not necessarily a problem. Needless to say whereas Einstein himself did not speak at all until 4!
• If your baby is somewhere a little behind, you don’t need to learn words and sentences with him all day long. Do not constantly ask him/her to repeat something. And in any case, do not shout at the child if he/she does not get something. If development lag is observed, take the young patient to a specialist. In the absence of pathologies, allow the brain to develop gradually.
• Bilingual family. For a child the basic learning of one language is already a serious challenge. Bilingual family is a double load. It is not necessary that the languages ​​are very different. For example, the problem can create communication of one parent in the Ukrainian language, and the second – in Russian. Make sure that the baby learns the basics of one language first.

Physiological reasons for ignoring addressed speech include:

• Severe infections and injuries (including psychoemotional injuries) suffered by a child at an early age. The main threats are brain traumas during childbirth and in infancy. Damage of certain cerebral cortex parts can cause allalia, that is, a breakdown of speech centers development. Such children have normal hearing and intellectual potential, but they are not able to memorize the words and, accordingly, respond to them correctly. Among extrahuman infections the greatest danger is cerebromeningitis, brain fever, inflammation of the inner and middle ear;
• underdeveloped facial and jaw muscles, congenital anomalies of the vocal apparatus. Muscles development disorders prevent child of normal speaking. Consequently, there are problems with its perception. By the way, extended nipples sucking can lead to muscles and bite misdevelopment. Up to 1 year stop teaching of it is not recommended, but after this period we advise you of thinking about this step. Mind individual peculiarities of your child and bring him/her to a specialist;
• neurotic disorders. They can be caused by difficult delivery, heredity, poor development of certain brain centers. Quite often children who do not respond to speech are diagnosed with minimal brain dysfunction. If the problem is identified in time, it can be cured. Different types of neurosis lead to the pathology development. For example, adverse events, child’s pressure can lead to reserved demeanor. Child may have a real phobia. Nervous breakdown doubles the load on the child’s nervous system. In such a state a child is much harder to perceive psychological tension. Whatever it was, you need to consult a doctor, because there is a risk to “let the pathology grow”;
• psychoverbal developmental delay.

It is worth talking in details about psychoverbal development delay. It is important not to miss these pathology indications. They are following:

• limited word stock (an average child at the age of 2 should know 150-300 words);
• unwillingness for verbal engage even with relatives;
• the child speaks too slowly or vice versa quickly, “swallowing” the word endings;
• inability for phrase reduplication after an

Normally, the formation of child’s speech goes through several stages: cry, babbling, lallation, and starting from 11-12 months the baby start to pronounce its first words. By the age of 1.5 word stock runs up to 40-70 words, and at 2 the baby, as it was mentioned before, uses from 150 to 300 words.

Of course, every child develops individually, and slight delays of speech functions development might be obsereved, which are not deviations, but depend on the child itself, its temper and heredity. But if your child does not listen, does not understand, does not respond to your requests, or he/she has completely missed the previous stages of speech formation, this may indicate about psycho-speech delay  (PSD).

More detailed, why the child does not speak at the age of 2 we have reported in this article.

A 2-year-old child does not respond to words, what to do

The only way out is treatment! The first and one of the main tasks of parents is to eliminate the deviation cause (first of all, it concerns families with unfavorable climate). The key treatment aspect is attention to your child, moral support and patience, because the correction is a difficult and painstaking process.

In the “Bersenev’s Medical Centre ” the treatment is  comprehensive. Our specialists have developed an individual program of disease treatment and correction. This program includes a complex of rehabilitation activities that are conducted by a pediatric neurologist, massage and speech therapists. Also psychologist, reflexologist and necessarily parents are involved in the treatment process.

In addition to standard procedures the complex treatment includes logopedic massage, metameric reflex therapy, and a unique doctor’s method – metameric acupressure.  Besides, parents receive a specially designed program of exercises and training at home individually for each child.

If you find symptoms of pathology conditions in your child, please do not hesitate. Be sure to consult an expert. The sooner you start this disease treatment, the more chances for full recovery your child will have. You can make an appointment for a consultation with a pediatric neurologist by calling the call centre (044) 238-22-31 or children’s department (044) 272-11-82.