17 month and 3 or 4 words- normal???

girl75

(3 of them being mom, dad and sisters name) 

my 17 mo ds says mama da, ga(for his sister) and cookie.

I'm not worried though because he nods yes and no, he undestands what we say (he follows commands)

i just feel for him because he gets so frustrated i think because he can not verbally communicate like mom, dad and 3 year old sister- anyone relate or have some advice?

Flem052204

My DD had 8 words at 17m 3w when she was tested for EI.  Of those 8 words, only 3 were actual words that anyone could understand.  The other 5 were sounds that I understood the meaning of--like ("cah" meant clock to her--she loved our grandfather clock at that age).  At 8 words, DD met the requirements for EI services with a 25% speech delay.  We went into the program and DD was completely caught up in about 6 months.  (She had a HUGE language explosion 10 days before she turned 2--she literally went from barely havng 35 words to waking up one day and speaking in 2-3 word sentences.)  When DD was 2.5 years old, she had her anual evaluation for the EI program.  She tested at the highest level possible, ahead of her age group for speech.  (Their tests only measure up to 3 years old)

So when my DD was the same age as your son and had roughly the same number of words, she was considered officially delayed.  But she developed at her own pace and within months was well beyond where she needed to be. 

Littlejen22

IMHO, its behind...but, my DH had a speech delay and I got him evaluated at 22mos and he qualified for EI, and by the the time therapy started he had almost 100 words!  Boys are often behind especially kids with older siblings.  It is likely not a problem as long as he is doing everything else on target including comprehension, but keep a close eye that he is progressing or get him evaluated.  That said, my biggest advice is to MAKE him talk, my DS used to grunt for things and we would just get what he wanted, after the evaluation we would make him try, even if it was mi for milk and make a big deal when he tries.  And try to make sure his sister is not talking for him.

Glendi2.0

Sylvie is 17 months (today) and only has about 5 words and she's in EI... so yeah, I'd agree with the others.

ppants

Our dr told us the average 1 yr old has 5 words.  My kids didn't at the time (had been very sick) so around 15 mo I mentioned it again that they only had around 4 or 5 words.  We got evaluated for EI, but didn't need it by the time they came.