A revised and expanded edition of the bestselling guide to late-talking children for parents, clinicians, and educators, from a leading authority on development and disabilities.


Every year in America, more than half a million parents of late-talking children face agonizing questions: What should I do if my two- or even three-year old has not yet begun to talk? Should I worry that my child is autistic or intellectually disabled? Are expensive therapies or medications needed? Will my child ever speak normally? In this revised and expanded edition of the essential resource on the subject, Late-Talking Children, Stephen Camarata—the parent of a late-talking child and a late talker himself—provides clear, sensible, and compassionate answers for parents, clinicians, and educators, drawing on his more than three decades of experience diagnosing and treating the “late-talking syndrome” as well as the best science available today.

This book provides parents with answers about their late-talking child and includes advice on how to navigate confusing health care and education systems. It offers an extensive update on autism spectrum disorder, newly developed interventions, updated criteria for determining whether a child’s late-talking is a symptom or a stage, and more importantly, if it is a symptom, how to be confident in choosing treatment that will optimize intervention. This expanded version also includes new information about the various clinicians whose expertise may be beneficial to parents seeking answers for their late-talking child. This includes pediatricians, child psychiatrists, psychologists, occupational therapists, special educators, and speech language pathologists.

A highly valuable resource for a commonly misunderstood issue, Late-Talking Children is the definitive guide for helping a toddler or preschooler who comes to speech late, providing clear and useful answers for parents, educators, and clinicians alike.