Talking - Virginia Beach,VA

Hey J., with my oldest daughter spoke really early and very clearly. I don't know if it was because she was the first everything, child, grandchild etc. so she was constantly around adults and we never spoke baby talk or repeated words back to her the way she had said it. My youngest on the other hand is almost impossible to understand princess=pinta, stuff like that. But because we know she's the last we have, for some reason, been repeating her words. I was also in speech therapy when I was younger. I worried about it in the beginning with her but have just decided that I'm not going to push her. The older she gets the more words she's picked up on, I think as long as you keep working with him you'll be shocked at how fast he picks up on words. Right now, I'm just happy that people can't understand her because she is at the stage where she points out embarrasing, for us, comments about others!

hey J., my daughter is about 21 months so ive been working with her for a while on here speach. one thing that ive really enjoyed is sign language! when i introduce a new word with both sign language and voice she tends to pick it up 10 times faster! and later on when shes tring to say the word and i cant quite understand, shell do the sign as well and then i know exactly what shes saying. every time she does this then i can work on the speach part more effectively:)
hope this helps! (there are many baby signing books, but i ended up just getting a dictionary type book, its very easy!)
good luck!

Your son sounds very normal to me. The handout that my ped's office gave us for 18 month olds said that they should have about 10 - 15 words by this time, so actually your son may be ahead of schedule. It sounds to me as though you are looking at your husband's background and some of your own and are afraid that your child will have or does have speech problems based on that. I don't think you should be afraid at all. I think he's doing great and he will be just fine. God bless you!

My opinion is that it's too early to be stressed about it much at all. Many speech impediments clear themselves up. Occasionally, work on a word when he says it, repeating to him how to say it correctly. But he's so little, I wouldn't be too worried yet. All my children (4) had difficulty with some letters and all but the oldest, with his "r's", have cleared on their own. He's learning so much and so quickly right now, it's common for the mouth to have trouble keeping up with the brain. Focus on how fun and wonderful he is and how much he is learning, don't make this a huge stress point for you and him.

Don't worry J., my son had a language explosion at 18 months and then again at 21 months old. Then all of a sudden...he's repeating EVERYTHING and he is 25 months old now. Each child is different but I don't think intervention in therapy is of concern right now. My son STILL don't say "milk" he'll say "Kawk" and the Ped. don't think anything of it. Aryan also comes from a multi-language home and he's doing alright with the limited words he does say in english. I'd wait till he turned 24 months and see what the Ped says. by then I'm sure he'll blow your mind away :)

I have a son,6 and a daughter,3. Both developed differently on speech but i used the same techniques for both. I started them on sign language at about 6 months. They couldnt sign back until about 9onths but they got the concept of language early. With our son he spoke with the missing consanats like you mentioned also until 5. We used those baby's first words books to practice ennunciation and I think that worked better than flash cards. We also played a lot of childrens nursery songs cd's and read lots of books to them both. We never corrected them when they said something wrong but did repeat the word to them correctly. Our son still needs a little help with pronunciation but speaks with an incredible vocabulary. His teacher tell me he is way above his grade level. He has also taken to word structure very easily. I think that stems from all the work we did. Our daughter on the oother hand, though we did everything the same just took off with her speach. She is 3 and uses words that surprise most people. She spoke in complete sentences by the time she was 18 mos. She uses correct grammer and tense and is incredibly verbal. We never spoke to our kids with "baby talk". We used the higher pitch when they were smaller but always with correct english. I believe that the more a child is exposed to language the better they pick up the skill. Music, books, signs are all very helpful. The more your son feels that you are just spending quality time rather than "lesson time" the more recepetive he will be. Work with him but if the ped said he should see a specialist I would do it. They only thing that will happen is you will find out how to best help him. With speach, the earlier the better. Best of luck.

I agree with everyone else. The speech evaluators probably won't even test him until the age of 3. I had two of my kids in speech. If you live in Virginia, and most states, by the age of 3 they have the responsibility to send to speech classes, just go to the school board about a month after your son turns 3. They will then test him and go from there.
S.

My name is L.. I live in the florence area.I have a little boy named Carson that just turned 18 months. I wouldn't stress too much about letters not being said yet. My son say car, truck, bird,grandma,momma,daddy,granddaddy,Bentley,Maggie,and a few more. Most other people wouldn't be able to understand him though. Even with Bob (the builder) and ball, he doesn't say the last B and with ball it is more like "ba." But we know what he is saying. I think that your son is right on track and it sounds like you are doing a wonderful job with him. I would keep an eye on it and give it a little while but don't let it stress you out too much because 15 words is a lot and he sounds very smart. Hope that everything turns out well and you enjoy your work-free summer and I hope that you two have a wonderful time. It is such a blessing to get a chance to do that.Good luck with school next year too.
L.

I do not think it is something worth stressing over, especially since this is pretty common in all children. (let's face it, how many times have we all tried to understand someone else's child????) However, here is a suggestion for helping your child become more 'legible' when speaking.

When I had my first child I came across an article about teaching your child to speak. In the article, it says to take your child's hand and place it over your mouth as you say a word. next repeat the word with your child's hand on the side of your face, and once more with his/her hand over your vocal chords in throat. This tactile form helped the child to 'feel' the word as well as hearing it. The way the mouth forms the word, and the way the throat vibrates the sound. I tried it with my first child, it worked wonderfully, so I did it with my second child as well. The outcome was that while my children did not talk "baby talk", and while everyone else's toddlers were hard to decipher, the compliments on my children's speech and the legiblility were abundant. It's worth a try....

I have a 2 year old son that is going thru Speech therapy right now. He will only say about 10 words(before we started therapt he could only say 5) i wouldn't worry till your child turned 2. My little one has had health problems since day 1 and we have a feeling that contributed to his delay. He will babble alot but noone can understand him not even us. We have had to teach him some sign language to communicate and that has worked great. Because now he can tell me if he wants to eat, drink, wants more, etc. Sign language is great when it comes to understanding what your child need or wants if they cannot talk. Now my 7 year old has a dental diorder and has had speech problems. at 3 we could understand him but noone else could. He never went thru therapy and is now about to pass the 1st grade. he does stuggle with repeating himself some slurred speech and diffculty spelling words because he spells them like he says them. we will have him tested in 2nd grade to see if he needs special ed classes for it By the way their daddy had to go thru Speech therapy too so sometimes it does run in family's. This is the first time i have had to go thru any therapy for my kids because my 13 year old was talking at 9 months old. It has been a rough experience but i am just so thankful that God let him live(he is our miracle baby)that i am just taking whatever is thrown at me.

WAY too young to be worried about speech. No one could understand my oldest until he was almost 5. Another of my kids didn't talk AT ALL until almost 2, and a third spoke very well at 2. Also, boys tend to develop speech later than girls, although this is not necessarily true. Good luck, but I wouldn't worry about it at this point.

Jen, You are right about the range of speech. If all his other domains are on target, I would not worry too much. It is always nice to have an evaluation done. If he is on target, at least you know where he stands in the speech domain. If he has a vocab of 15 words or better and you and your family are the only ones who can understand this--This is typical. You are with him all the time and TWO year olds are sometimes hard to understand. So at 17 mos, I wouldn't worry about the clarity.

Something that can help is singing common songs: Twinkle Twinkle, Itsy bitsy spider, etc. Children's songs where there is repetition. Even books like: Brown bear, Brown bear. You can also sing those. I think it would be more exciting than index cards--not that that is bad. There are a lot of books, CD's, and even sign language (videos) help with speech. Go to your local library and check things out for free. You can also sign him up for story time at the library.

Remember girls are usually more talkative and boys more active. Hope this helps.

I agree with the others, I wouldn't start worring till he is around 3yrs. You have to remember that the way sounds and letters are formed and some of them are harder than others. Mostly the ones where the tounge is pressed on the back of the upper teeth or roof of the mouth. A friend of mine was concerned about her almost 3yr old because she couldn't understand her half the time. She would use M instead of N and change or leave out other letters. Speach therapist said she was fine and about 3 months later she started speaking plain as day! My son is only a year old and says mama, dada, ni ni (for night night-going to bed) and some times ball and Jade (his sister) but he leaves the 'll' off of ball and the J off of Jade.

You could try making sounds with him. Like 'vroom' would help with the R sound, etc. And when he says a word repeat it to him. I can totally understand that you are worried especially since there is family history but I really wouldn't stress too much at this point. Besides, remember they saying we teach them to walk and talk and then we have to teach them to sit down and be quiet!!

S.

I would not worry too much about his speech just yet. Boys tend to take longer to talk. I have a 2 1/2 year old and yes I am worried about his speech but his ENT said to wait until he is closer to 3 to take him to a speech dr because boys don't have the patience to sit and really listen to what they are telling them to do. I hope this helps.

J., my son will turn two on the 31st, and he still has troble pronouncing everything, and like your son, he doesn't say every part of the word either. I have been told that boys delay more than girls in everything, the best way I was told, is to do what you're doing, just work with him, saying thigs slowly, he'll pick it up. My son is doing much better with talking and sentences now, but he's two. It just takes time.