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My son, M, was born hard-of-hearing. At 7 months, he wasn’t turning his head to locate sounds — a milestone that should have been reached at 3-6 months.

By then, we knew he would never quite be able to — his hearing loss is such that he can’t localise sounds, ever. But it still bugged me when the doctor left out that little check-mark next to the milestone in his health booklet.

If you’re a fellow parent of a deaf, hard-of-hearing or non-speaking child, I’m guessing you’ve felt the same about “speech milestones”. Why should we privilege speaking over all other forms of communication?

Reframing language development

Here are three reasons why we should expand our definition of language development beyond speech.

1. We should focus on language access. We want our children to be able to communicate with us and with the community around them. Speech is only one of the ways to achieve this.
2. We need to more accurately reflect our children’s cognitive development. Our children’s brains grow with access to language. Accurately accounting for that growth could help us better support them with the right kinds of intervention and services.
3. We can celebrate our children’s language choices and identities. When we look beyond speech, we recognise signed languages (or other non-verbal modalities) as valid forms of language. We can celebrate our children for who they are, and surround them with community they’d be comfortable talking with — whatever form that talking takes.

An inclusive view of all communication

To me, all communication — whether spoken, signed, through an AAC or otherwise — is valuable and must be respected. So here’s my attempt at changing the discourse.

Let’s advocate for our kids

Is it too much for me to hope you’ll take this list to the doctor’s office, therapy, or any other place you might discuss your child’s development?

No matter your child’s needs, changing the way we talk about language development helps us stay focused on the real goal — that our kids have access to meaningful communication and connection with others around them.

Let’s be our children’s greatest advocates, and respect and celebrate the ways they communicate!

Ashley at Big Life Journal lists some metaphors you could use, like challenges being a big grass field you have to fight your way through.

Here are some activities you can try with your young child:

The jumping challenge.

You’ll need: Some Post-its, and a blank wall.

• Ask your child to “make a little baby jump”.
• Then, ask your child to “jump like a big girl/boy, as high as you can”.
• Each time, stick a Post-it on a wall to mark how high they’ve jumped.
• Now, compare which Post-it went higher (the second one).
• Explain that your brain is a “muscle” that grows: “When you were a little baby, you could barely lift off the ground. Over time, you grew stronger. Now, you can run, climb and jump. Just like your body, your brain gets stronger every time you exercise it.”

Building a model bridge.

You’ll need: Some Lego or wooden blocks for the supports, and a variety of materials with different thicknesses for the bridge (e.g. paper, cardboard, other Lego/wooden blocks).

• Set 2 blocks some distance apart. Explain that these are neurons, which help your brain do things.
• Build a bridge, starting with the weakest/flimsiest material first (paper), then slowly making it stronger with the stronger materials.
• Explain that neurons make stronger connections the more you practice. “When you are learning something new, the neurons connect with each other and build a bridge. At first, the bridge is flimsy, like paper. The more you practice that new skill, the stronger the bridge becomes.”

Building in the dark.

You’ll need: A dark room and a flashlight, and all the materials you used earlier for the bridge activity.

• Switch off the lights. Then, ask your child to try to build the bridge by feeling.
• Now, use a torchlight to light up the bridge, and ask your child to build the bridge again.
• Explain that mistakes are like “brain flares”: “Every mistake you make is like a little flare or light going off in your brain. The neurons will know where to go to cover up the gaps and build another bridge.”

That’s when I realised two things: first, my sore throat badly needed a break from all that futile squeaking, which wasn’t helping with the kids anyway. Second, and more profound—this moment of not being heard, and of literally not being able to voice, was something my children experience every day, as they try to communicate before they can talk.

Signs of understanding: My day of silent communication

Since our very first Singapore Sign Language lesson, my classmates and I have been going “voice-off” for a few hours each Saturday morning. To be “voice-off” is to voluntarily stop using our voices and communicate through sign only, though we do slip into the occasional typed/written sentence (we are beginners, after all).

Going “voice-off” isn’t just classroom protocol or a sign of respect for our Deaf instructor—it’s an immersion technique that forces us to think differently about communication. In these classes, even our instructor must adapt, carefully selecting signs and sentence structures that we novice signers can understand. Not only do we end up being more fluent in sign from being forced to use it, we also walk away with a greater understanding of Deaf culture and our own (hearing) biases towards relying on speech to communicate.

Understanding baby communication: Walking in their tiny shoes

When I chose to go voice-off with my family for a day, I didn’t immediately realise there were important parallels with how babies communicate.

1. Babies and toddlers can understand much more than they can say. Research shows that suggests that babies understand their first 50 words in half the time it takes for them to say them. This baby communication gap (officially termed the “receptive-productive gap”—the difference between what babies understand and what they can say) creates an interesting paradox. Imagine having the vocabulary of a philosopher but being limited to the speaking abilities of, well, a baby. While this is an exaggeration, it is not too far from our children’s daily reality.
2. Our smart babies use multiple strategies to help us understand what they have to say. Because the number of words they can say is so limited (compared to what they know and understand), when you add articulation challenges (how well they pronounce words), the baby communication puzzle becomes even more complex. The typically-developing 2 year-old’s speech is 50% understandable to their parents, though it can take up to 4 years of age for strangers to understand just half of what they say. No wonder our babies often get agitated and seem to throw tantrums! But, because our babies are also incredibly resilient, they also know how to problem-solve and attempt to use other baby communication tools together with speech to help us understand them. Around the age of 1, babies will start using gestures and speech simultaneously to communicate with adults. So gesture isn’t preventing your child from speaking—it’s helping them speak.
3. It’s normal for our kids to get frustrated. It’s taken me months to understand when baby M is trying to say “ball” and when he’s saying “bus”, “bike”, or “bath”. Thanks to sign language, each time I mishear him, he knows how to supplement with the sign. But as he grows in emotional depth (hello, terrible twos on the horizon!), I’ve been bracing myself for worse and worse tantrums when I still fail to understand him after repeated attempts. As an adult, it was hard enough to maintain my cool during my voice-off experiment when I couldn’t get understood in time (e.g. my signs were misinterpreted, or I didn’t have the signs to say what I needed to and had to resort to typing, which is much slower). Our children, who are still developing frustration tolerance, probably have it worse.

Unexpected lessons from a day of silence

The most surprising discovery? My children proved to be my best interpreters. While adults, including my mother (who has taken sign language classes), struggled to understand my basic signing, my kids displayed an almost intuitive ability to grasp my meaning.

When I related this to a friend, she chuckled and pointed out that kids are much more forgiving because their daily lives are filled with words and concepts they’re still learning to grasp. As a result, my children were more willing to take guesses based on partial information (my poor signing), compared with the adults, who were used to understanding perfectly (and dare I say, being understood perfectly).

The contrast between child and adult responses was striking. Adults quickly grew impatient with my typed messages, often moving on before I could contribute to conversations. Even when I switched to typing on my phone, the natural flow of adult conversation outpaced my ability to participate.

Inclusion at the dinner table

This made me wonder: how often do I inadvertently silence my children by rushing past their attempts to communicate?

My experience reminded me of what the Deaf community calls “Dinner Table Syndrome”. It’s the feeling of isolation Deaf individuals get when they’re unable to fully participate in conversations with majority hearing folks. While I am in no way saying that our hearing children’s communication frustrations amount to “Dinner Table Syndrome” (doing so would belittle the extent to which isolation occurs for our Deaf friends who cannot physically hear all that is happening, even with hearing devices), I do see some parallels.

I had the ability to understand much more than what I could say, but I wasn’t being heard. When I tried to put myself forward and participate in conversation, the onus was always on me to get there faster than anyone else. That proved nearly impossible as I had to type out full arguments before I could show them to my family, whereas they could interrupt each other freely with half-formed words and interjections. I sometimes opted to simplify what I had to say, which left a very unsatisfying feeling of not being heard, or worse, that my thoughts themselves were less consequential compared to what everyone else was able to vocalise at the table. Eventually I just sat there, watching conversations flow around me like a river I couldn’t quite step into.

I wasn’t sorry, though. Through this, I gained a new perspective on the emotional impact of communication barriers.

The day when I lost access to my voice taught me how early communication shapes our children’s sense of belonging. When we rush our children’s attempts to express themselves or grow frustrated at their developing language skills, we risk more than just missing their immediate message. We risk them feeling the same social and emotional distance I felt during my voice-off experiment.

In the end, going voice-off wasn’t just about understanding baby communication challenges. It was about recognising the patience, understanding, and inclusive practices that can make every family member feel heard, regardless of their communication abilities. Perhaps the most powerful lesson was learning that sometimes, the best way to understand how babies communicate is to experience, even briefly, what it means to struggle to be heard ourselves.

Looking to improve communication with your baby or toddler? Remember that their attempts to communicate—whether through gestures, signs, or developing speech—are all valuable steps in their language journey, just like the moments you spend reading together. Subscribe to our newsletter for weekly tips on reading, communication, and making the most of your precious time together.

We’re unconsciously biased towards speaking

As someone who’s been raised in the hearing world, and who has until very recently been completely immersed in it, I am often guilty of prioritising speech over other forms of communication. With my elder daughter L, I even bought a baby language course which claimed to help make her a “talker”. (Course or not, she did eventually become a “talker”, but she’s also the second most fluent signer in our household.)

For babies, we are often concerned about how many words a baby is speaking. This emphasis on speech is enshrined everywhere, from doctors’ offices to school reports to milestone guides.

An inclusive view of all communication

Instead of looking at speech alone, it is far more important to look at how effective a child’s communication is. So, if your child is not yet speaking, but is able to sign or operate an AAC such that you are clear on what he/she wants or needs, these are also massive achievements that should be celebrated.

So, here’s my glossary of some more inclusive alternatives to early language development terms. I’ll keep updating this list as I discover new terms:

Reframing conversations about language development with inclusive terms

Here are three reasons why you should use inclusive language development terms:

1. These terms more accurately reflect our children’s development. Whether our children signs, speaks or otherwise, there are underlying cognitive processes that help them learn language. These reframed terms capture the cognitive development that’s happening in their brain across all communication modalities, and thus provides a more accurate picture.
2. These terms celebrate our children’s language choices and identities. When we use these alternative terms, we recognise signed languages and other non-verbal modalities as valid forms of language. By doing so, we celebrate our children for who they are.
3. These terms keep focused on language access as our priority. Using these terms helps to shift the focus to the broader issue of language access. It is access to language that is critical for our children to develop and thrive.

I get it — it can be hard to push back on professionals who seem so much more experienced, particularly if you are new to parenting a differently-abled child. So, here are some tactful ways to reframe conversations in different contexts:

Scenario #1: At a developmental check with your doctor

Doctor: Your child is showing signs of delayed speech development. You need to do speech exercises and work on getting them to repeat after you and speak more.

Parent: Thanks, Doctor, but I’d like us to focus on productive language development rather than just speech. My child is already pointing, gesturing, and making sounds. Research shows that we should build on these forms of expression to support their overall language growth, instead of focusing only on speech. Can we create a plan that respects their individual strengths?

Scenario #2: At a speech therapy session

Speech Therapist: Your child seems to be struggling with auditory closure, meaning they can’t piece together partial sounds in noisy environments. We need to focus on improving their ability to process what they hear.

Parent: I hear what you’re saying, but I think this might be broader than just auditory closure. This seems more like a difficulty with perceptual closure. For example, I’ve noticed my child also struggles to make sense of incomplete visual cues, like partially hidden objects or gestures. Can we include strategies that go beyond auditory processing, maybe integrating both auditory and visual exercises? That way, we’re helping them process incomplete information in all contexts, not just hearing.

Scenario #3: At the audiologist’s office

Nurse: Because of your child’s hearing loss, they’re experiencing auditory deprivation, which means they aren’t getting enough auditory input for their brain to develop to its full potential. We should get them hearing aids or cochlear implants as soon as possible

Parent: I understand, but what really concerns me isn’t auditory deprivation—it’s language deprivation. Hearing aids or implants can help with auditory input, but without ensuring access to a full language, like sign language or visual communication, they’ll still miss out on essential language development. Can we look into resources to introduce both sign and spoken language so they’re not limited by any one approach?

Let’s advocate for our kids

If you found this useful, I hope you’ll take this to the doctor’s office, speech therapy, or any other place you might discuss your child’s language development.

Changing the way we talk about language development helps us stay focused on the real goal — that our kids have access to meaningful communication and connection with others around them. Let’s be our children’s greatest advocates, and respect and celebrate the way(s) they can and prefer to communicate!