Parents, especially anxious first-timers who devour every baby book, might panic when their child shows no inclination to speak, even as toddlers playing nearby jabber away with abandon.
Late talkers can cause many moms and dads fits but, in most cases, they need not worry, says brain investigator Susan Ellis Weismer, a professor of communicative disorders at the University of Wisconsin-Madison and a principal researcher with UW’s Waisman Center.