By the time her daughter turned 3, Ramona Santos Torres noticed something not quite right about the child’s speech. The toddler babbled, but nothing she said was intelligible. She rarely made eye contact with other people. Most babies, Santos Torres knew, start to utter some recognizable words before they reach the age of 2. “We just couldn’t make out what she was saying,” Santos Torres recalled.
The mother, who lives in Providence, Rhode Island, mentioned it to her daughter’s pediatrician, who quickly dismissed the concern, saying the speech delay was because the family spoke both Spanish and English at home. “It was so frustrating how little he listened to me,” Santos Torres said. (Studies have shown that early bilingualism can in fact confer social and cognitive benefits.)
When the girl was diagnosed with autism and cognitive delays a couple of years later, it hardly felt like vindication, because Santos Torres knew that her daughter had missed crucial help during critical years of brain development. She’s now a teenager.
“We missed that window from 1 to 4, which is such a precious age,” she said.
This story about early intervention was produced by The Hechinger Report, a nonprofit, independent news organization focused on inequality and innovation in education. Sign up for the Hechinger newsletter.
The post Black and Latino infants and toddlers often miss out on early thera... appeared first on The Hechinger Report.
