One of the most common and emergent symptoms of pediatric cognitive delay we see in our office is speech difficulty. In fact, it is so common that as many as 50% of the children aged between 2 and 5 who present to our office have already been referred to county services for physical therapy, occupational therapy and speech therapy. While individual children develop at different rates of maturity, certain predictable speech benchmarks must be met for certain adjacent neurological pathways to develop; TL:DR, speech maturation is predictive of brain maturation.
The fact that speech issues in children are becoming so ubiquitous is quite disturbing, but not surprising, particularly given our traumatic birth culture in which 6.7 infants die per 1000 live births. Cognitive delays are often symptoms of birth trauma, intrauterine constraint and/or environmental toxicity, which inhibits neurological conduction, cerebrospinal fluid circulation and mechanical input to the developing brain. Certainly, the earlier these children are evaluated by a qualified specialist, the better.
Jeremiah presented to our office at 2.5 years old. His mother was concerned about speech issues and night terrors amongst other common gastrointestinal symptoms including colic. Although his birth history revealed very little traditional trauma, he was reported to have had his umbilical cord wrapped around his neck at delivery. Additionally, Jeremiah had taken many falls and had many accidents in his short young life, which negatively impacted his spinal alignment and neural development. A primary alignment issue was located at C1 with secondary problems at T6, L3 and S2. After several weeks of correction, Jeremiah’s mother started noticing significant improvements in speech, sleep and digestion. After more than a year since our initial encounter, Jeremiah shows almost no signs of cognitive delay and requires very little chiropractic oversight.
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Dr Daniel Bronstein is the clinic director of Beacon Chiropractic in Grover Beach CA and specializes in the chiropractic care of children and pregnant mommas. He is Webster Technique Certified by the International Chiropractic Pediatric Association and devotes the core of practice to helping children and families live healthy lives.
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