Telegraphic speech is not a bad thing. It is often a phase or developmental stage one goes through before they develop more sophisticated language skills. Children often are able to learn those very important smaller words, such as articles (a, an, the) and auxiliaries (is, are, etc.) and other parts of speech necessary to make longer sentences without much more than a little time listening to the adults around them and trying to say utterances themselves; you know, practice. If children can not learn longer more complex sentences within a reasonable period of time, however, therapy may be warranted. That is a good time to get a screening.
The same is true of people after a stroke or other accident in which the brain is injured. Some people only use telegraphic speech following a stroke. They may improve from not being able to verbalize at all to using two or three word sentences. At this point it is a functional skill and there is little hope of them becoming more verbal. Telegraphic speech may be the only verbal communication they will "get back" or recover. They can not get past this level in rehabilitation. The thing to remember is that at least they are able to convey some basic ideas and feelings verbally. Many stroke patients are not even able to recover this much ability sometimes.
Telegraphic speech sounds strange, yes. But I tend to look at the person, where they have been, are functioning now and are going. Some people will get past telegraphic speech and develop fluent language skills. Others, however, may not and this is where they will function. If we look at the person as a whole we can see telegraphic speech for what it is, a stage of development or a functional level we need to understand.
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