Should I be concerned about my daughters speech?
My daughter is almost 16 months and doesn't say very many actual words. She says Hi about 500 times a day, and can say baby and shoe and a couple oth...
My daughter is almost 16 months and doesn’t say very many actual words. She says Hi about 500 times a day, and can say baby and shoe and a couple other words. She is very smart though, for example if I ask her where her baby is she will stop what she’s doing and go find her doll, or If I tell her to put her ducky in the carriage (one of those kids shopping carts) she does it. She understands almost everything I say to her. She has a doctors appt tomorrow and I plan on talking about it then, but wanted to hear what you all had to say?
I doubt if there is cause for worry. My 1st was like this – she could identify numbers by pointing by age 20 months, knew all her colors, body parts, etc but couldn’t say much more than half syllables – da, ba, ca, etc. Speech took off for her around 2.
My 2nd was speaking sentences by 18 months and knew lyrics to dozens of songs by about 21 months. Sang them all too.
Now my 3rd, he is nearly 18 months and he does exactly like your daughter – follows directions, remembers where things are, constantly is ‘talking’ to me in some nonsensical syllables. He can point to body parts and knows who everyone is. But he has only 1/2 dozen real words so far.
My ped had always said, look for the communication first – if that is there, then the words will follow.
Of course you should mention it to your health visitor as knowing you have done this will put your mind at rest. As long as they respond appropriately to your questions, ie ask her to point out various things in picture books, then you can rule out hearing problems. Children do things in their own time and it may just be part of her personality. My son was also not very talkative at that age but was happy, intelligent and responsive. He can talk the hind legs off a donkey now though! Lol x
My son who just turned 2 in June just started to really talk a few months ago. If you really worried asked the doctor sometimes it just takes some children longer than others.
P.S To get my son trying to say words I would repeat words to him all day he than picked it up.
Albert Enstein didnt speak until age 3 , his parents feared he was retarded…
my son didnt speak much until he was 2 …it seems like after age 2 they really take off..
i would say your little girl sounds like she is right on track…
No cause for worry at all -
Usually the firstborn is slower to speak simply because he/she doesn’t have siblings who talk to her – siblings teach babies that smaller people can talk and make them more inspired to try.
My son was almost 18 months before he said more than five words – and he had that one word (like your daughter’s hi) that he got stuck on. He’s very smart too.
Talking really doesn’t take off until after kids turn two (although from age 18 months to age 2 they’ll say an average of a new word a week – even if they don’t say the word again). They understand really early, but it takes more than smarts to make them try to talk themselves – right now, what your daughter has works to communicate what she wants to communicate. As she gets older she will find out that you don’t understand everything & that frustration will drive her to talk more.
I think you could take her to see someone, but I don’t think I would worry too much…my own kids were both really early doing most things, and could say whole sentences at that age…but every child is different and I have known some take two years before they can even put 3 words together…
Its so funny when people mention Einstein being a late talker because it is well documented by several sources that Einstein was autistic. I have 2 sons on the autistic spectrum and your daughter doesn’t sound autistic at all so I would never compare her to him. Her understanding or receptive language is very advanced. Also kids speech takes off once they are pointing. Is she pointing yet? If not she will be within the next few months. It’s a 14-18 month skill. When my son was recertified for speech delays by his speech language pathologist she wanted him to have 8 words at 18 months. It sounds like she is right where she should be. It is very hard to qualify for speech services under age 2, especially with receptive language that is above average. Usually kids qualify under two on the receptive language delay. To qualify they need to be 20 percent or more behind. She is ahead receptively at least 24 months, and her expressive speech sounds age level. A word explosion typically happens around two years old. A word explosion is when you hear 1 or more new word everyday.