'We just want Lucy to talk to us'

Jonathan Brown's three-year-old daughter is bright and happy – but struggling to speak. Just how worried should her parents be? He describes their search for answers

Everyone remembers their child's first smile, the first time they sat up or those initial stumbling steps as they lurch towards your open arms. Each landmark is joyous payback for all that hard work, the dirty nappies and the long sleepless nights.

But probably the most exciting of all are those first words. These halting sounds signify the moment we really start to get to know our child, the beginning of one of the most meaningful relationships we will have with another person. After all, speech is perhaps the defining characteristics that makes us human and let's face it, we all love to talk.

Yet for all the importance we place on the ability to communicate it is estimated that one million children in Britain today struggle to do so. Our three-year-old daughter Lucy is one of them.

Call me biased but Lucy is a beautiful little girl, bright, full of fun and mischief with a Sid James chuckle and a movie star smile that would melt the flintiest heart. But when it comes to speaking, she just can't seem to spit it out. While other children her age may have mastered up to 300 words, Lucy, even on a good day, is lucky to muster a couple of dozen.

Research shows that a child who struggles to speak will also find it hard to read, write and make friends. It can impact on behaviour, cause emotional trauma resulting in a child failing to reach their potential. That is why problems associated with speech and language development were highlighted last week by the Government's new "communication champion", the educational psychologist Jean Gross. Yet woundingly for my wife and me, the results of her first research appeared in newspapers apparently laying the blame at the parents' door.

They are "too busy" to help their children learn to talk, it was suggested. The usual culprits were named and shamed – women who go to work; substandard nursery care and, of course, television. So as parents both of whom are in paid employment and who have long relied on professional child care – as well as being the proud owners of a TV set permanently tuned to CBeebies – the headlines hurt.

Clare Geldard is director of operations for the Early Talk programme for the charity I Can, which helps children with speech and language difficulties and runs a brilliant website (www.ican.org.uk) which should be the first port of call for any parent with concerns. She says the first step is making sure that each child has the right supportive environment – this means books, nursery rhymes, songs, talk, games, fun, and yes, provided it is not on for "hours and hours", the television too. Identifying the condition is key, she says, something that is hampered by the prevalence of "old wives' tales" surrounding children's speech, such as the evils of dummies or forward-facing pushchairs.

"Unfortunately, children don't come stamped with a sign saying 'I have got a speech and language problem'. That is one of the big issues. It is not like they have a caliper on their leg or are in a wheelchair," explains Clare.

This poses challenges from parents' point of view, especially because speech and language are so complex. Unlike walking, which you can either do or not do, communication is incredibly nuanced and multifaceted. "There are a million and one causes. It can be as a result of another difficulty or can be in isolation or it could be environmental. If it is in isolation it is most likely caused by the wiring in brain," Clare says.

Yet a diagnosis in children is notoriously difficult, not least because they can make huge developmental strides in just a few weeks, which leaves parents playing an anxious waiting game, not knowing if this is just a stage that will just end.

For us, nagging doubts over Lucy's failure to talk began to crystallise around the time of her second birthday. She had had a difficult time in the womb and she was induced a month early, and was a scrawny little thing. Comparisons are the curse of parenthood for sure, yet Lucy undoubtedly struggled through the early winter months of her life, dogged by a wheezy chest and ailments which always hit her harder than most. In our minds we made allowances, accepting that she was three months behind her peers, especially when our GP raised a concern because she was slow to sit up.

Gazing back now through the fug of tiredness that surrounds any newborn it is hard to recall the exact order of events. She didn't smile readily and though she was by no means silent her sounds were limited. Midway through her second year she had mastered the word "dada" and used it for everything. Naturally enough I took this as a sign of her devotion to her father though her refusal to say the word "mama" was quietly eating away at my wife.

By now concern over her failure to point out animals and make the appropriate baaing and mooing sounds was permeating the wider family. Lucy's grandparents were sitting her on their knees and trying just that little bit too hard to get her to repeat words. You could start to sense how her failure to learn was affecting the way Lucy was perceived.

We knew that she was suffering by comparison. Unlike her older sister, who had memorised whole books well before her second birthday, she just didn't seem interested. Lucy simply wouldn't sit through one, try as we might. This being the second time around we hoped we were more relaxed as parents, but reading had been such a rewarding and enjoyable part of our eldest daughter's life that we had to think hard about what to do instead. Ironically, she wouldn't watch television and struggled with even the most basic games of peek-a-boo. Pointing to ears, eyes or nose remained a lottery. Though she was developing in other ways – she had learnt to walk, she was feeding herself, albeit messily, and was even sleeping through most nights – it was hard to engage her and those words simply wouldn't come. Some people thought we were being too pushy, worrying too much; driving her too hard to be like her sister, whose advances only seemed to reinforce the fact that Lucy was stuck in a mire of wordlessness.

Some friendships suffered and we began to get touchy talking about it outside the family. Though we pretended to the contrary, she had no discernible words beyond "dada" and she seemed to be increasingly locked inside herself. Her concentration span was minimal and the sense that there was something amiss was reinforced by the fact that she drooled excessively, often requiring six or seven changes of clothes a day. Frequently she became so frustrated she would bang her head on the hard floor. At night she would rock furiously from side to side shouting the same sound over and over again, sometimes for hours at a time. Our dinnertime conversation became dominated by the question "what is wrong?". We often lay awake mulling over the frightening possibilities.

There were breakthroughs. On one holiday we managed to get her to sit through a book. It was a great moment. But it was a case of two steps forward, one step back. When she got a word we would rejoice, yet it seemed to disappear as suddenly as it arrived. In one miraculous breakthrough my parents persuaded her to sing the "row, row, row" part of "Row, Row, Row Your Boat". She has yet to complete the first line of that song and the day she does I will crack open the champagne. Yet even in the darkest times we knew that at heart she was a happy and gregarious little girl. She was our Lucy.

Today thankfully we are in a much better place. On the recommendation of our GP and with encouragement from my sister-in-law, an occupational therapist, we sought professional help. At times this has been slow going. Some of the initial speech therapies designed to improve the strength in her lips and mouth (normally wet with drool) such as kissing with chocolate sprinkles and sucking lollipops seemed worse than useless. The first sessions were more about checking that we knew to talk and play with our child, which felt like a waste of time. We eventually got a place one day a week at a special centre at the local hospital. Sitting down on small chairs to sing nursery rhymes with a group of children, some of whom clearly had profound difficulties, was scary and upsetting. And it was often frustrating that no answers appeared to be forthcoming. Lucy's first report after a term at the group had her severely behind in all but one of the development categories. By the end of the second term she had caught up. We even have a name for what she has – expressive speech delay. In other words she can understand what is being said but cannot articulate words very well herself. It means her language is developing in the right way, albeit very slowly. Thanks to her improved concentration she even managed to pass her hearing test – ruling that out as a cause of her problems.

Of course all of this might have happened without any of the worry and she may suddenly forge ahead tomorrow. But the good news is that something can be done and we are more relaxed, which means she does not pick up on our worry.

Next month Lucy will start one-to-one lessons with a speech therapist and research shows that effective intervention in the "golden period" before five and a half, means children with resolved language difficulties will succeed at school, doing as well in exams as their peers.

We know Lucy is lucky and her problems appear for now to be relatively mild. For children with more serious difficulties, I Can operates two special schools, Dawn House in Nottingham and Meath School in Surrey, which provide intensive support for children aged four-19. For some of the older children who arrive there this is the final stop on a long and frustrating journey. Jenny McConnell, head of therapy at Dawn House, explains: "Some parents come here feeling like they are tearing their hair out, desperate to find the right place. A lot of our children arrive with very low self-esteem, especially those who have been in mainstream education and where it has broken down. Some of them have never been identified at all and the first year is about building up that self-esteem and being in a place where people understand what is going wrong for you."

And the methods are successful. Nearly all the students leave Dawn House having passed GCSEs and bound for a college course, capable of living independent lives, which is something well worth talking about.

Talking tips: Help a child's language

* Get your child's full attention first: get down to their level and engage their attention before speaking. Say their name and talk about what they are interested in.

* Make it fun: funny voices, rhymes, noises and singing all help and don't forget to be silly.

* Imitate: repeat back the sounds, words and sentences very young children make. This shows you value what they say.

* Use a full range of expression: speak in a lively and animated way and always use gestures and facial expressions to back up what you say.

* Keep it simple: keep sentences short and repeat the words you use.

* Make it easy: turn down music and the TV so they can be heard. Have quiet time and if they use a dummy keep it for sleep times.

* Build on what they say: talk clearly and add one or two words – if your child says "look car" say "yes, look red car".

* Give them time: children need time to gather their thoughts, so give them the space to answer.

* Be careful with questions: don't ask too many, especially if it sounds like you are testing them.

* Demonstrate the right way: praise them but also correct them – they say "look dod" say "yes, it's a dog".

For more information see Talking Point at www.talkingpoint.org.uk