Just because your child is shy it does not mean they have bad language skills — they might just not want to talk.
A study of more than 800 toddlers has found that far from having their language inhibited, as some scientists had assumed, children who were shy understood speech just as well. Instead, in the words of the researchers, they “know it, but won’t say it”.
The study, published in the journal Child Development, followed the children from the age of 14 months to 24 months. It looked at how their shyness, measured by observing how clingy and upset they