Myth:
Physically healthy children who are late talkers will catch up to their peers by kindergarten or first grade.

Reality:
Some children will indeed catch up, but many will not without intervention. For these children, language         development can proceed slowly, and residual language problems are often present in adolescence and early adulthood.

Myth:
Children with language disorders are passive in conversations with older children and adults.

Reality:
Some language-disordered children are generally conversationally passive, but many can be quite assertive with familiar adults and younger children

Myth:
Children with language disorders will eventually outgrow their problems. After all you do not see adults saying "Me go bathroom."

Reality:
Language impaired children do improve as they get older and some disorders resolve naturally. The longitudinal studies of individuals who were diagnosed as language impaired in the pre-school years offer considerable evidence that language disorders persist as children grow older but may change in their expression.

Prepared by Dr. Genese Warr-Leeper,

School of Communication Disorders, University of Western Ontario