Talking - Troy,MI

Hi there.. Wow.. I just went through this.Its sounds just like my daughter. She is now 3 years old (turned 3 Apr 23rd) and talking very well(sometimes too much-haha) and sings up a storm..But her talking (clear) didn't start until about 2-3 months before she turned 3..It gradually was getting better between ages 2-3, but a lot of progress aprx 3 months before turning 3. I started worrying about the same time as you are now..I talked to the doctor and he told me that she should be saying more but my daughter was also very early walking and great at physical things, so maybe she is mastering one thing at a time.. The doctor told me that as long as she is understanding me and following simple comands, then she is ok..But at 18-19 months I was still worrying so he referred me to a program called TOTE (teaching our tots early)..Its a state funded early intervention program. The teacher comes out to your house and does an evaluation, then tells you whether they quality or not..Well they came to our home at 19 months and they said that my daughter did NOT qualify..But they would do another evaluation at 24 months. She came back at 24 months and said YES she does quality now because of "expressive language" delay. If you qualify teachers come out to your home for 1 hour 2 days a week and work with your child and show you things to do with them, etc. Our teacher was great with my daughter (Jannet Low). This program is through the Woodhaven school district, but services a pretty large area (we live in Allen Park)..She recently had a final evaluation and they said she is definitely in the normal range of language now and some of her other scores were even in the 4 yr range..They discharged her from the program and gave her tons of gifts(books,leap pad, etc)-Quite nice!! Anyway, I think it helped but she would have came around on her own..So I do recommend trying that if it will make you feel better. My issue was that my daugher only said a few things clear and then the rest literally sounded like Chinese! lol She was get into quite serious (and amusing) stories but I couldn't understand a word.. But I knew she understood everything. Another thing that helped her A LOT was that she started day care in January this year and is around other kids her age. Prior to that it was just me and my husband with her since we worked opposite shifts. If you'd like to talk more feel free to contact me ____@____.com I'm in a rush now, I'm off to pick her up from day care.. Good Luck. She'll be just fine though (: Some kids just take it all in for a while and they'll start talking "english" when they feel like it (: (:

She sounds very Normal. Sometimes kids who do the physical stuff first talk later.

And it's not your fault she's not talking a whole lot yet. I didn't use simple words and phrases with my now 5yr old and he started talking around 8months started walking around 13months.

Hi C., My name is E.. Your daughter is at the age where she is learning words. Where she is at is fine, I worried about that as well, but it is prefectly normal. I always read to my daughter everynight. That really helps them learn new words. Get books with lots of big pictures and point to the things that you are talking about as you read, get really excited when you do this. Then they get excited too, and are more interested in what your saying. My daughter now has a huge vocabulary, she uses really big words for her age. It makes me laugh because she's so little she sounds like a little genius. Now she would rather read a book then watch tv, and even play sometimes. So good luck with everything!!!

Take Care
E.

My son is an early walker and late talker as well. It is completely normal.
For all those months she was trying to perfect her walking, talking to her was just not important.
Think of it this way....If you were walking a tight rope, you wouldn't want to talk. You would concentrate only on putting one foot in front of the other without falling down. Your daughter is doing the same thing. She is just leaning how to walk without falling down. As soon as she's ready she will start picking up words left and right.

Chidren all develop at different and individual rates. That being said, once they start using a few words-it seems like it doesn't take long and they are blowing sentences out at you. We did not use no, mine or any negative words with my son either. Not for Evan sufficed, and we did not even hear the word "no" out of him until 18 months. We taught him sign language and encouraged him to ask for things by name and he is now using 5-6 word sentences at 2.
Try to get her to communicate more verbally with you by using the words. When you give her juice, repeat it a few times and see if she will say it back but always always give her the word as you show her the item or give it to her. They understand so much more than they let on so groom that and she'll be rambling before you know it. We didn't use Early On for Evan because it wasn't ever needed, we started him in Shiawassee ABC's Great Start (Parents as Teachers for children 0-5) and he has really excelled. If you have a Great Start program in your area I would utilize it, it is free and I have found them to be a great source of information as well as free playgroups and activities to get us out of the house and interacting with other kids. The same contact we have for Evan has been helping us integrate his "little brother" that he will be having in September, gave us great info on potty training, and has just been a great tool for us. We wanted to make sure that with his development he never lagged and this program definately is a keeper-we will use if for his little brother even though I know more this time.
http://www.michigan.gov/greatstart is the link.
Good Luck,
C.

Hi C.,
It sounds like your daughter is understanding language and putting together event sequences (by kowing that the dog has to be unchained before he can play), but just not talking much. Im trying to remember my son at that age and I think he was at about the same verbal stage your daughter is. He could understand and carry out almost anything we told him, but not repeat it. Good news is that now even the doctors are AMAZED at his vocab. and language skills. It never fails that people will come up to me, awed at how well he talks. The reason I say that is to tell you that a lot can happen in the next year or so and I'll bet your kiddo will start chatting away. You might long for the days when she was quiter :)! Anyway, I credit his verbal progress to our belief that children can understand long before they can speak, so we have always spoken to him in sentences and words that are ok for him to repeat, just as you are. Don't get me wrong, we play all the time, but when it comes to discipline, or trying to convey an idea to him, we speak quietly, making sure he is looking at us, and explain simply but thoroughly...and it works. Keep up the good work, she'll get there!! (p.s. I dont mean to try to diagnose a problem. If you suspect a delay of any kind, get her checked out...it wont hurt her and might just settle your mind, too.)

Hi C. -

Our pediatrician told me when I was in for our 15 month visit that he expected our daughter to be saying about 6 words (that we could understand, but maybe not everyone could) and by age 2 about 50. Our daughter was also not saying too much at this time, but definately understood what we were telling her. As she was a preemie, we have follow-up visits with a developmental clinic (only 1 more!!!!!!) and at that time they wanted to try and refer her to Early On for speech therapy(they had said we didn't qualify once before). I told them I thought we needed to wait a bit longer to say that she was speech delayed and discussed this with the pediatrician when we were in. He agreed and gave me those APPROXIMATE numbers. It took a few more months (18-19 months), but she nows is probably close to that 50 word mark, if she isn't there already. She tries just about every word and if we don't understand it, she just repeats it over and over, and over, and over again until we figure it out or she finally gives us (we tell her we are sorry, but we don't understand)!

Long story short - I'd give it a few more months before I started getting too concerned, but do discuss it with your doctor if you are really concerned.

Hope this helps -
J.