18 month old and talking?

sohappy14 · October 2012

I am not sure how to assess whether my lo is talking or not? He doesn't no say any words but does try to babble a lot!! He can say car and baby and ball but only if I tell him to say it. (and that's not always) he understands soon much, but doesn't say words for most part. He babbles and and aphas full conversations with me, but I don't understand a word. What is normal now? We go to 18 monthnold appt actually when he turns 19 months. So I will ask then, but I'm a little worried. He is very active pointing at everything ! Very observant too. Just no real words.

jag101 · October 2012

My LO doesn't have words yet. Makes animal noises, and yells a lot. My first was a late talker too, but once she started, there was no looking back. I'm not too worried yet.

2u2wow · October 2012

DS has a few words - maybe 10 that he says all day long...

dada, mama, gampa, ball, doggee, tee (tree), uh oh, oh oh (open), wa wa (water)

they aren't pronounced and most of the time we're the only ones who know what he means

i wouldn't be concerned and i'm not about DS -

just don't let them freak you out about speech delays and autism tests...boys especially develop slower than girls and unless there is a severe delay i wouldn't be worried.

jen1022l · October 2012

Im the speech therapist that posted before on the speech therapy and autism topic. its great that your little guy is pointing and interacting, but i would recommend getting a speech evaluation. we recommend that 18 month olds have at least 15 words at an absolute minimum. while some kids are just late boomers and may grow into speech, often times a speech therapist can tell if its something they will grow into or if something is standing in their way, preventing them from talking. early intervention is the most important factor is a child's success in speech therapy. its better to do therapy now when they are only 4 to 6 months behind instead if waiting till they are 2 or 3 and are a year or so behind. the language burst typically happens between 18 to 30 months and you don't want to miss out on that happening. let me know if you have any questions, id be happy to answer them.

LadyXaverian · October 2012

jen1022l:
Im the speech therapist that posted before on the speech therapy and autism topic. its great that your little guy is pointing and interacting, but i would recommend getting a speech evaluation. we recommend that 18 month olds have at least 15 words at an absolute minimum. while some kids are just late boomers and may grow into speech, often times a speech therapist can tell if its something they will grow into or if something is standing in their way, preventing them from talking. early intervention is the most important factor is a child's success in speech therapy. its better to do therapy now when they are only 4 to 6 months behind instead if waiting till they are 2 or 3 and are a year or so behind. the language burst typically happens between 18 to 30 months and you don't want to miss out on that happening. let me know if you have any questions, id be happy to answer them.

If the language burst happens between 18 and 30 months, why would you run in at the beginning of that window?

You're the professional, so I'm not contradicting you, but it seems kind of alarmist to me.

To the OP, I do have a co-worker who is taking his 18 month old to early intervention speech therapy because his daughter also has no real words. She's adopted and was exposed to drugs in-utero, so they are erring on the side of caution with everything. Anyway, once they got into the speech therapy, they learned that she actually did have some words that they weren't identifying because they were listening for obvious, fully-formed words, but the therapists were able to identify sounds that their LO was using consistently to identify different things.

LadyXaverian · October 2012

Grace0609:
SarahL77:

jen1022l:
Im the speech therapist that posted before on the speech therapy and autism topic. its great that your little guy is pointing and interacting, but i would recommend getting a speech evaluation. we recommend that 18 month olds have at least 15 words at an absolute minimum. while some kids are just late boomers and may grow into speech, often times a speech therapist can tell if its something they will grow into or if something is standing in their way, preventing them from talking. early intervention is the most important factor is a child's success in speech therapy. its better to do therapy now when they are only 4 to 6 months behind instead if waiting till they are 2 or 3 and are a year or so behind. the language burst typically happens between 18 to 30 months and you don't want to miss out on that happening. let me know if you have any questions, id be happy to answer them.

If the language burst happens between 18 and 30 months, why would you run in at the beginning of that window?

You're the professional, so I'm not contradicting you, but it seems kind of alarmist to me.

To the OP, I do have a co-worker who is taking his 18 month old to early intervention speech therapy because his daughter also has no real words. She's adopted and was exposed to drugs in-utero, so they are erring on the side of caution with everything. Anyway, once they got into the speech therapy, they learned that she actually did have some words that they weren't identifying because they were listening for obvious, fully-formed words, but the therapists were able to identify sounds that their LO was using consistently to identify different things.

I agree with you, Sarah.

Being one who REFERS kids for speech evals, I always give a 3 month leeway on most developmental milestones... unless there are warning signs for multiple developmental delays...
...but if I referred every kid who was only saying a few words at 18 months the waiting list for services would be obnoxiously long and would hinder help for the kids who actually need it.

This makes sense to me.

algalphys · October 2012

Hi there!

We got referred for speech eval for our DS at his 18 month appt. because he only has about 10 words he uses infrequently and did not have a 2 word phrase. However, the wait list here is quite long and I don't know when we will see a therapist. In Canada, we don't typically see a pedi unless there is a medical issue most kids just see a gp and only when sick and after 18 months they don't see a public health nurse til age 4 so obviously they don't want to wait until age 4 when the delay could be a huge problem. For what it's worth I'm not overly concerned with DS speech but it would be nice if he started talking better so I knew what the hell he wanted!!

jen1022l · October 2012

The language burst is when kids go from about twenty words to two hundred. kids need a few words before this can happen. often times we get these 18 to 24 month olds in because they aren't talking, and while we are doing the evaluation they are missing or are delayed with many of the prelinguiatic skill necessary for language development. yes, often times is a delay, that with a little bit of therapy resolves, but the other half of the time we can identify a disorder like autism, apraxia, or other disorders that kids won't outgrow. too me, its absolutely worth getting an evaluation if your worried about your kid's development, there's no harm in it.

mommy0411 · October 2012

jen1022l:
Im the speech therapist that posted before on the speech therapy and autism topic. its great that your little guy is pointing and interacting, but i would recommend getting a speech evaluation. we recommend that 18 month olds have at least 15 words at an absolute minimum. while some kids are just late boomers and may grow into speech, often times a speech therapist can tell if its something they will grow into or if something is standing in their way, preventing them from talking. early intervention is the most important factor is a child's success in speech therapy. its better to do therapy now when they are only 4 to 6 months behind instead if waiting till they are 2 or 3 and are a year or so behind. the language burst typically happens between 18 to 30 months and you don't want to miss out on that happening. let me know if you have any questions, id be happy to answer them.

I agree with this. If you feel something is wrong ask to have him referred. I am currently going through this with my son. He has a mixed receptive and expressive language disorder and it looks like its being caused by a sensory processing disorder.

Your little one is doing a lot more then my son. But our pedi wanted to just watch him for 3 more months and kept telling me because he was developing physically normally that he was probably just a late talker. I really felt like something was off so I insisted on the referral and I am so glad I did. Our speech therapist said it was very good he was already in therapy because he would have likely just gotten farther behind.

Good luck and I hope your little one is just a late talker!

18 month old and talking?

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