I’ve got a three year old visiting me tonight. Is it odd that the three year old only seems to be able to babble and and not be able to speak a single word? He’s got a Curious George as well as a Snoopy stuffed animal. He doesn’t seem to be able to respond to, “Do you want to play with George?” He doesn’t seem to understand, “You can’t hit George. That hurts his feelings.” The child doesn’t even seem to be able to say hello or goodbye.
What type of speech should you expect from a 3 year old? He is closer to 4 than 2.
I’d say from my experience this is a bit unusual. I have a 4.5 yr old, 2.5 yr old, and 1.5 yr old. Yes, it’s a little crazy at my house.
My eldest and youngest were talking fairly intelligibly by 16 months or so. A few complete sentences and such, tough to understand due to no being able to enunciate, but definitely talking. My middle child didn’t start talking so much (mostly just “yes”, “no”, “please”, “thank you”) until she was almost 2, but she definitely understood quite a lot.
There are lots of different possibilities. One is that he/she might have an undiagnosed hearing problem. But yes, this is unusual.
Yes should be a point of concern for the parents. It is not unusual for a child to have some speech delay, or to not reach all milestones on time. But from your description this child would appear to be way behind normal development.
Here is one guide to standard speech development.
24 months (2 years.):
Child understands simple questions and commands
Identifies familiar actions/activities in pictures (i.e. “sleeping, eating”)
Follows directions to put objects “on, off, in”
Puts two words together on average
Sentence length of up to three words
Child will refer to self by name
Labels pictures
Final “s” is used for plurals
Vocabulary may jump to 300 words during the year! In fact between the ages of 2 and 4, kids may increase their vocabulary by as much as 2 words per day
30 months (2 1/2 years.):
Child has about 450 word vocabulary
Child is able to give his/her first name
Child uses past tense, plurals, and combines nouns and verbs
Begin to identify objects from a group by their function and parts (ie. “which one has wheels?”, “which one can we eat?”)
Begin to use verbs with “ing” endings (i.e. “eating”)
Early concepts such as “big, little” are identified
Child will use “no, not” and answer “where” questions
3 years.:
Child will name at least one color
Child will often talk during play, or when alone
Child can tell a basic story or idea
Child can use 3-4 word sentences
Begins to understand “not”
Can identify items in a familiar category or group (i.e. “show me the animal”)
Child can have a vocabulary of up to 1000 words
Children are often able to tell their name and street
4 years:
Child will follow 2-3 step commands
Child will ask many questions, including “who/why”
Child talks in 4-5 word sentences
Understands and verbalizes spatial concepts more readily such as “on, under, next to…”
Child will talk in the past tense correctly
Is it just you, or does the kid not talk to the parents either? Have they expressed concern to you?
I wouldn’t be enormously concerned if it’s just shyness (which can go on for a long time. I’ve been taking my Smaller Girl and a friend of hers to music classes now for about a year and a half - during this time, friend has said about 3 words to the teacher ever. But she chats away quite happily to us in the car). But if the kid just doesn’t talk, then yes this is a red flag.
IME, this is most unusual. As has been noted, the time of development of speech varies a lot among children. Speech comprehension is less variable. I’ve known more than a few kids not much more than a year old who would have had little trouble understanding these phrases.
if it’s not shyness proabably a serious issue. my youngest has special needs related to speech delays. she was speaking more than that for single words at that age.
Does this child have any older siblings who talk/interpret for him/her at home?
While not verbalizing at three is pretty unusual, a dominant older child in the house might be “helping” the parents by explaining that a particular kind of babble means more juice, another kind means he’s tired, etc.
If the kid doesn’t usually spend time out of the home, he may not be accustomed to having to speak for himself so that adults can understand him.
Whether or not this is true, not every child is Albert Einstein, and the bigger issue is that the child in question doesn’t seem to understand spoken language, as well as isn’t producing spoken language.
I agree with the possibilities of hearing issues or autism spectrum disorders, and would strongly recommend that the child be assessed by a specialist.
Is the child in a bilingual household or environment? That can cause some language delay in the early years, though it shouldn’t impede comprehension, only sometimes delay production.
My son was very slow to start talking. He was on the back end of the bell curve, but the speech therapists and the experienced teachers who evaluated him concluded that there was no particular problem. Bartman posted a list of speech milestones. My son was achieving these in a normal order, if more slowly than would be typical. He achieved the “understanding speech” ones at or before the usual time. So they said, “Eh, some kids are slower to talk than others. He’ll catch up.” And he did.
But the kid in the OP doesn’t sound like a late talker. He sounds like a kid with a problem. Even if he wasn’t forming clear sentences, he should at least be able to say hello and goodbye and thanks and all that. The fact that he doesn’t seem to understand things as described is certainly odd.
I think the parents would be more concerned–kids act differently when strangers are around. I point out Einstein, not to suggest that this kid is a savant, but to show that little kids hit milestones at different points. As you stated, it is a bell curve, there are going to be kids talking clearly at one year and kids still babbling at 3 years.
Children can at very strangely in such situations. My kid, about the same age as the one in the OP, will sometimes clam up and refuse to answer quetions if she’s uncomfortable, and especially if strangers are pressing her with questions.
When she’s not shy, she won’t stop talking, and in sentences and such.
On the other hand, I know a couple who insisted their kid was just progressing slowly even though he was still crawling at age 2, and wasn’t talking at all.
Around 2 and a half or 3 they finally broke down and admitted he had problems.
I don’t know details about what doctors were telling them, or what kind of doctors they were taking him to if any.
A close friend of mine has a child who was behaving in much the same way as the child in the OP - no language production, no response to his own name, no comprehension. I recommended a hearing test (fearing it was actually autism), but since I do not have children, my opinions regarding my friends’ children are invalid and suspect (yes, they’ve said that. I have new friends now).
Took another 6 months before they FINALLY noticed what everybody else noticed, and had him tested. Autism.
Parents sometimes are too close to the situation to see what other people see.