A LATE TALKER IS
A child who is typically developing in the areas of language comprehension, play, physical development, and cognition but has a limited spoken vocabulary (expressive language) for his or her age.
A CHILD WITH A SPEECH DELAY
Will demonstrate speech-language development that is below age appropriate but still following typical developmental phases.
A CHILD WITH A COMMUNICATIVE DISORDER
Will demonstrate not only below age appropriate speech-language skills but skills that are scattered, In other words, a communicative disorder does not follow typical speech-language acquisition steps. Clinicians judge whether a child's skills are typical and age appropriate based on numerous studies conducted on typically developing children across the globe.