Developmental delays in cognitive, language, and academic domains

It is a well known fact that children do not reach the same milestone in their language development on exactly the same schedule. Their developmental rate can vary by several months or even a year and there is no evidence, for example, that "late talkers" end up as less fluent than "early talkers". Nevertheless, between ages 2 to 5, a child will begin use language as the primary means of communication, self-regulation, and cognitive operations. General norms that exist in this country are roughly applicable to children adopted from Russia or any other country. For example, a child speaks a few words at her first birthday, six months later her vocabulary increases at least ten times, by two a child is routinely stringing words into simple sentences, and only a year later a child may have a repertoire of a thousand words and is understood by strangers. If a child at three can produce only about three dozens words that only his mother can understand, and grunts, points, and gestures to get what she wants - we consider this child as having language problems.

Language problems, unfortunately, are the most common deficits in children from overseas orphanages. The common picture for many orphanage' children at the age of 3 is incomprehensible speech with only a few phrases used, very limited vocabulary, poor understanding of what was said, and slowness in learning new words. At the age of 4 the same problems persist with attempts to use somewhat longer sentences usually with faulty grammar. Our colleagues in Russia suggested that this situation is not only due to a severe lack of quality and quantity of verbal interaction between a child and an adult during the so-called "critical periods of development", (ages 1 to 5), but mostly because of the very context of the communication. For babies in an orphanages the goal of communication with an adult is physical contact and attention from this adult. Mutual object-related activity and cognitive learning activities are very limited. And this has a detrimental impact on the language. In fact, a child does not need language to attract a smile, a hug, or a pat on the shoulder: for this it is enough to approach to an adult and establish eye-contact with her. It is when a child wants your help and cooperation in mutual activities when language emerges as a means of communication and regulation of behavior.

It has been found in children from immigrant families that those who - for their age level - have well-developed first language skills usually acquire the second language faster and easier. The reverse is also true. So it is apparent that the majority of post-institutionalized children are weak in their first language and, therefore, they are "at-risk" in learning their new language. The most "at-risk" group is children between the ages of 4 and 8. Children adopted before the age of 4 have at least several years of development mediated by their new language before they enter school. Children older than 8 in many cases have learned to read and write in their native language and they have an opportunity to transfer some of their cognitive language skills into their new language. Also, language problems in children older than 8 are relatively easy to identify and remediation strategies are likely to be straightforward. Those between 4 and 8 really fall between the cracks. Their language problems are difficult to pinpoint because they are disguised by the dynamic of second language acquisition, which is mostly in communication, not in the cognitive area. Adoptive parents are usually amazed and pleased by their children's progress in mastering basic communication skills and they see no apparent reason for any extra language remediation. The problem is that when it becomes apparent, it may require "heroic efforts" and may result in a lesser degree of success.