Speech and language skills are absolutely fundamental to our well-being and success in life. We use these skills constantly to communicate our wants and needs to others, to collaborate and negotiate, and to build strong bonds with other people. Language skills are also important for our learning. In schools and at home, we learn new skills and acquire new knowledge by listening to others talking and reading written language. The demands on language skills only increase as children get older and progress through their education.

It’s often easy to identify children who have difficulties with unclear speech, as you will find it difficult to understand their talking, and your child may be frustrated when their speech is not understood. Language, on the other hand, can be a hidden difficulty which is harder to identify as we often can’t observe whether someone has or hasn’t understood.

Learning to understand and talk is a complex process. Children need to master a number of different skills. They need to hear lots of talking and experience lots of interaction with other people to understand what words mean and be able to combine words together to make sentences.

Extract from speechandlanguage.info