I’m not a parent, but my sister has twins who are about 18 months old (they were a year in May) and they’re not talking yet, either. My mom and I taught the girl twin to say “Mama” at 5 months old, but she seems to have blocked that out.
My sister’s theory is that the kids are “confused” because their father is Nigerian (and my sister’s from Kansas), so they’re hearing 2 different languages in the house. She wants them to learn both, but thinks that her husband should only speak English to them until they get that down, and THEN move on to Language #2.
FWIW, I disagree–I think they can handle 2 languages at once at that age–but whatever.
I guess I haven’t helped you much; I just wanted to share an anecdote and tell you (as others have) not to worry.
I read somewhere (it may have been here) that one of the keys is to make sure they learn them as two languages - by having mom speak one language to them and dad speak another, so that they distinguish between the two.
But I’m not a parent, nor am I around young children more than once in a blue moon, so I really don’t know.
Two languages is not a problem. Both of my kids spent a lot of time with a babysitter who spoke English and Portuguese to them at random–often in the same sentence. They were both early and prolific talkers.
Both of my 2 sons were late talkers. My daughter is 9 months and so we’ll just have to wait and see about that one.
At 2 years my 2nd so could only say ‘Mama’ and ‘Dada.’ He is now 3 and says a lot, but is extremely hard to understand.
My 1st son also had these problems. We had him evaluated by speech pathologists and all. But now he is 5 and is about at the same level as all the other kids.
So in my case, both of my kids started out very behind. By age 4 the oldest was mostly caught up, and by 5 was totally caught up. I’m just hoping my 2nd will follow the same pattern.
And maybe I’ll be lucky and be able to avoid this problem with my 3rd.
Mt brother has 3 boys, with a fourth child sex unknown, due just about anytime now. The youngest boy Teddy is a bit over 2 years old and up until very recently did little to no talking. There wasn’t any need for him to do so, all he had to do was point and grunt and someone would come running to find whjat he wanted.
About a month and a half ago, my brother called all excited:
Matt (My older brother): Hey Ben, guess what?
Ben: What?
M: Teddy said his first words!
B: Cool!! What were they?
M: “Damn Volvo!”
B: Dead silence for approximately 5.7 seconds, followed by a full 2 minutes of braying laughter.
Take Sowell’s books with a HUGE packet of salt if you track them down. Be incredibly careful if you join the Sowell LT lists because they are weird places. FWIW I got kicked off for discussing IQ tests because “I made other list members feel uncomfortable because my kid tests high on IQ tests”. Ummmm if the premise is that LT is linked to high IQ, then ummm yeah, it is a touch odd that these kids are not testing well on IQ tests and are not doing things in a noticeably advanced way. The majority of parents on those lists are discussing kids who sound very classically autistic as opposed to being wee geniuses.
The books are interesting reads but I think the syndrome is rarer than people want to believe. After all, it’s easier to think Junior is a child prodigy than Junior is autistic.
I have two late talkers. One who didn’t speak until he was 3 and who was dx’ed as an elective mute. He’s now 9 and off the charts verbally. Once he began to speak he wouldn’t shut up.
The younger one is less of a straightforward success story. While his receptive language is good, his expressive language at 5 is still very lacking. Lots of echolalia etc.
However 18 months is early to panic. If I were you, I’d look into how long waiting lists are and put his name down to be seen at 2 – I’ve been caught many times by waiting for things to sort out and they haven’t and we lose time on waiting lists. There’s probably very little a speechie would recommend now other than talking to a child and reading to them and beginning games which require turn taking.
My son didn’t talk beyond basic basic words until he was FOUR he is now six. He followed directions and and understood what we told him. He just didn’t seem to feel the need to respond. We read to him and talked to him like he was an older child, I never have been a baby talk person, and it was obvious that it wasn’t a understanding issue.
Then one day he walked up to me and said “T rex lived in the Cretaceous Period.” Floored me totally! His pronounciation wasn’t perfect but I knew what he said!
Obviously he talked when he damned well wanted to!
Now he lectures anyone who will listen on dinosaurs and totally surprises adults with the range of words stored in his 6 yr old head. We were at a class on fossils and the college kid teaching it held up two rocks and said “What are these?” Josiah put up his hand and said “Gastroliths” There was 10 seconds of dead silence while the teacher picked his jaw up off the floor:D
So my opinion? Don’t stress out. More than likely he will talk when he is ready and pushing him will only be counterproductive.
Enjoy the silence while you can…
Oh yeah and there is the episode at school this year where he told his teacher she had pretty nipples :eek: Apparently his ears work JUST fine! Now we gotta work on WHAT comes out of that mouth…
Definately too early to worry. My (now 16) son was a late talker. In fact, he and my daughter (10 months younger than he and 3 months premature) started talking in sentences at about the same time – 18 months or so for her and 2 and a half for him. And Doe’s speech really took off quick – she was talking a blue streak by 2 years old – while Nick’s continued to lag. My feeling at the time was that Doe, being physically disabled, channeled most of her energy into communication, while Nick was just a firepistol – always running around getting into things – and doing stuff was more important to him than talking about it. His pronounciation was pitiful even at 3 – he said “Ghostbuster” with no s’s, no t’s and no g’s! I was about the only person who consistantly understood him. Anyway, by the time he was 4, he was talking as well as any other 4 year old. Now he rarely shuts up – I swear the kid even talks in his sleep! And he is (IMHO) unusually articulate for a 16 year old with an excellent vocabulary. Good looking, too!
I, too, worried when my daughter had only a couple of words at about 18 months. As others have posted here, once she decided to talk, it was in surprisingly coherent sentences. Every kid advances at his/her own pace.
I am told I didn’t talk much at all until I was three, and even then, I was very hard to understand. Apparently my mouth wasn’t able to keep up with my brain, so my words got mangled because I was trying to talk too fast. This still happens to me occasionally, but I know to stop and organize my thoughts and start over again.
Primaflora has good advice. If your son does end up needing intervention, there is a window at which it is most successful. Better to find out what that window is now and what you are going to need to do to hit it, than to hear when he is four “if you’d only called us before he was two.”
I believe Dopers tend to be brighter than average and are therefore somewhat more likely to have the “talks late, but has mastery when they start” scenario, for themselves and their kids. We probably don’t have too many people here diagnosed as autistic.
As Primaflora said, statistically, he’ll turn out just fine. But your kid isn’t a statistic. This doesn’t mean panic. It means take steps to make sure no matter what the outcome, you don’t kick yourself for not doing something sooner.
Ditto…I think 18 months is a bit too early to worry. My kids didn’t really start talking in a way I could understand until they were 2 1/2-3.
Call up a speech therapist, or maybe contact your local university and see what they say. Sounds like you’re doing everything right and your doctor seems to be a little bit too “by the book.”
YMMV…don’t fret. Maybe when his brother or sister is born he’ll chatter more.
Lots of great info here for you, belladonna. As a father of a child who was diagnosed with a delay in his speech, I can understand your concern.
What we did was have him tested. Our county has a testing center run by our Intermediate School District, which has a very excellent Special Education department. If you are really concerned, it would be a great start to check with your county educational service agency. They can set you straight on where and how to get your child tested. It usually is free of charge (at least in Van Buren County, MI it is).
When your child is tested, you will know for sure where his language level is compaired to other children his age and if there is any delay, they will recommend what to do next.
For me, my oldest son had a speech delay. It was quite noticable to us compaired to other children his age, so we went to our ISD and had him tested with Van Buren County “Project Find”. It turned out he was in the 20th percentile for speech. It was recommended that he be sent to Pre-School and work with a speech therapist. After a year and a half, he is now in Kindergarten and in the top reading group in his class.
My youngest didn’t start talking until he was almost three, and I didn’t know that was unusual. On his third birthday my daughter said “Jack is three so he can talk now!” and apparently he overheard her, because he’s been going non-stop ever since.
As if you need another example of how being a late talker does not translate into being a poor communicator, my sister started talking at two, was first published at eight, has a masters in journalism and has been a senior editor at three magazines so far.
Wow! Everyone has chimed in with such helpful and reassuring stuff, it would take me forever to address you all. I just wanted to say that I am still reading these with much interest, and taking all of your suggestions to heart.
I love this place!
