We know that post-institutionalized children are at risk for delays in
language development. In addition to an oftentimes unknown
prenatal and early postnatal history of motor and speech
development, your child might not have his or her own
"conversational" partner. This is usually the role of a personal
caretaker, who talks to the child. With the absence of such caregiver,
the child's language will be delayed and will have no strong foundation.
But when the first language is poorly developed in a child, it inevitably leads to difficulties in the acquisition of a second language. Thus, speech and language evaluation of your internationally adopted child on arrival in his/her native language may help find real learning disabilities well before they surface in the English language, and secure necessary school support and remedial services from the start. The issues with language development will become apparent already in the psycho-educational assessment, and the psychologist may give you a referral to find out what kind of speech/language difficulties your child has in order to be able to correct them.