Prashant and Savita Srinivas couldn’t decide whether their four-year-old son, Prateek, was a genius, had a past life or was suffering from a disorder. The boy could rattle off lines from films in Kannada — which neither of his parents knew — but couldn’t communicate in the two languages — Tamil and English — that were spoken at home.

That was when the parents approached Katherine Mathew, a speech therapist at the AHAP Centre for Hearing Aids, Madurai.

It took some probing for Mathew to zero in on the problem. Prateek’s parents — both Bangalore-based software professionals — were busy with work all day and left their son behind with the nanny. And the nanny liked to watch Kannada films on television.

“As per age-specific speech milestones, four-year-olds are comfortable speaking in their mother tongue. But Prateek did not have any stimulation or role model at home from whom he could pick up Tamil,” explains Mathew.

As the communication gap widens in urban, double-income families, young children are not learning to talk on time. “It’s a case of delayed language development as age appropriate speech learning does not take place. A lack of parent-child communication means children have no stimulus to talk,” says Mathew.

She has seen an increasing number of cases where young children — with normal biological parameters — face language problems such as talking late or difficulties in understanding words. “I see about 15 such cases every month. Five years ago, this was unknown terrain to me,” the therapist says.

Children learn to talk from the environment they live in, points out M.S.J. Nayak, director, Nayak’s Speech and Hearing Clinic, Bangalore. “A child cannot learn a language unless there is a model present. The presence of parents and other family members gives the child an opportunity to hear the same series of words again and again. This stimulates children to understand and comprehend language,” explains Nayak. The absence of parents for most part of the day, on the other hand, triggers the problem.

Take five-year-old Rohan, who spent most days in a crèche. Being a quiet child, he remained aloof from his peers. “Children who live in a low communication environment tend to develop articulation problems in speech,” stresses audiologist Shruti Kulkarni.

When Kulkarni asked Rohan what he liked most, he replied: “ocolate and ola.” Going by the childhood speech development chart, these are words that should be rolling smoothly off a child’s tongue. “But Rohan could not grasp or speak most words entirely. He made substitution errors while talking,” says Kulkarni. “When no one talks to a child, his brain does not get stimulated into picking up new sounds and words. The learning milestones of speech and language become deviant or delayed,” adds Nayak.

Delayed speech development can also lead to stuttering — or a disruption in the flow of speech — in children. “This happens when a child is not fluent and well-practised in a language. He falters while talking,” says Mathew.

The science of speech has a term for the disorder — Specific Language Impairment (SLI). “SLI is diagnosed when a child has delayed or disordered language development for no apparent reason,” says Sanjay Kumar, speech therapist at the Sanjay Speech Hearing and Rehabilitation Centre in Bangalore. Like the other experts, he stresses that this is the fallout of the lack of interaction between parents and children at home. “The number of such patients has shot up in the last few years,” says Kumar.

Ritwik Bhaskar, a three-year-old boy, was a patient Kumar treated some months ago. “This is the age when children can form small sentences. But Ritwik spoke in monosyllables and single words. His vocabulary was limited to need-based words such as water, ball and bed,” Kumar says.

When the therapist assessed the child, he found that his mental and physical parameters were normal. “Ritwik’s problem was the absence of a talking role model at home,” says Kumar. The therapist found that Ritwik’s father, a software engineer, travelled six months in a year on work-related projects. His corporate professional mother attended MBA classes on weekends. “Once Ritwik’s problem was identified, his mother quit her job. He improved in two months,” says Kumar.

Since language is a skill that has to be learnt from others, it is important to constantly communicate with young children, says Kumar. “Speech development starts from birth. By one, children start saying simple, often-heard words. They combine words by two years of age and make small sentences by three,” says Kumar.

Increasing stress on city children is also taking a toll on their speaking skills, believes speech therapist A.P. Singh of the Speech Therapy Centre in New Delhi. “Pressure and inadequate attention from parents can lead to stuttering in children. This speech defect is a manifestation of under-confidence,” says Singh.

Experts say that stress has varied implications on speech development. “A stressed child could become less expressive verbally and his speech can turn mumbled and unclear,” explains Ajit Harisinghani, director, Speech Foundation, Pune. The therapist says he sees about 20 children a month who develop speech disorders because of environment-related reasons. “The numbers have doubled in the last five years,” he adds.

Stress was the issue when the Deshmukhs moved from Mumbai to Sydney two years ago. The relocation took a toll on their four-year-old son, Samit. “In Mumbai, Samit was studying in a Marathi-medium school. When he was admitted to an English school in Sydney, he felt alienated and stressed,” says Harisinghani, who treated the boy recently. “Samit’s speech was unclear and he was jumbling English and Marathi words. His speech disorder was an outcome of stress,” says the therapist.

Some fear that lack of communication at home may lead to problems later. “For instance, a child needs a model to learn when to smile, scowl or greet others. The absence of this learning can turn him into a social misfit,” Mathew says.

But some experts believe there’s no need to press the panic button. “Environmental factors have a 10 per cent contribution in speech disorders. They can only trigger a disorder if a child has a latent physical or psychological tendency,” says Radhika Puvaya, director, Samvaad Institute of Speech and Hearing, Bangalore.

But Savita Srinivas is not taking any chances. She now works half-days to spend quality time with her son.