As children develop language with variability and have individual strengths and weaknesses, parents might feel conflicted about when to seek out support for their children and when to “wait and see” if they observe lags in progress or delays in acquiring new skills. Maintaining a once common “wait and see approach” is based on the idea that some children may require more time to develop a given skill compared to their peers and may with time, catch up and develop the given skill at their own pace.
According to the Hanen Centre’s summary of two recent research studies, the current literature suggests that the “wait and see approach” is outdated and that even minimal or prematurely provided intervention can be worth it in the long run compared to no intervention or support at all. It is suggested that parents and service providers no longer “wait and see” because language challenges identified at one point in time often persist/continue and have a greater impact to children as time passes on. In addition, by circumventing language challenges with children earlier rather than later, the risks for having greater or persistent difficulty can be eliminated. According to Hawa (2014), “early identification and decision making for intervention are both essential and crucial for late talking children and the more risk factors present, the more the risk for persistent language impairment and the need for clinical interventions.”