No talking at 15 months
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Anonymous
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My 15-month-old baby says no words at all. Not even Mama or Dada. He makes English-sounding syllables, but that's about it.
His doctor isn't worried. But all of the milestone lists I've found online say that he should be able to say a few words. Anyone have any advice? Anyone's child have a similar history and then go onto speak well? I'm worried that his lack of words could signal some cognitive/intellectual issue. |
Anonymous
| Call Child find, you can do so without a referral. They assess your child for free and if there is a delay, they provide free therapy auld your schedule at your home. My son had the same profile, also dismissed by the ped, and ended up having a speech disorder. He can talk so well now, after lotsunami of hard work. But the road would have been much harder for him if we waited. It costs nothing to check with Child find, and so valuable if he needs it! |
Anonymous
| Is there more than one language spoken at home or by caregivers? Both of mine have been slow to speak, but I've changed it up to our Spanish speaking au pairs. Neither have had any long term speech issues. |
Anonymous
| I had my daughter's speech evaluated at 15-16 months -- that was the right thing for us to do and you might consider it, too. Your son's ped might be right that his lack of words is indicative of nothing, but it would be nice to have a professional (a speech therapist experienced with early childhood speech development) confirm that. My daughter had no words at 15 months, and very few consonants. She could not imitate me at all. It turned out that she had childhood apraxia of speech, and that she needed speech therapy to help her learn the movements to create sounds and words. Chances are your son does not have apraxia, but again, it would be nice to rule it and other speech disorders and delays out. Georgetown, George Washington Speech and Hearing Clinic, Univ. of Maryland College Park, and some of the private practices are all good speech programs that offer evaluations. Some people also have good experiences with early intervention (Strong Start in DC, other names in other jurisdictions). Best of luck to you! |
Anonymous
Exposure to more than one language does not cause speech delays. 
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Anonymous
| I agree with the PPs that your DC should be evaluated. As the PP suggested, you can call the Early Intervention office for your district and ask for an evaluation. Child Find is typically for kids age 3 and older. Early Intervention is for kids younger than 3. |
Anonymous
This is one of the biggest myths out there - children are ripe for learning more than one language and it doesn't delay them in the slightest. |
Anonymous
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Don't freak out. Does your child communicate needs in other ways? Does s/he understand what you are saying? Does s/he want to be read to? AT that age, kids love those picture books that have 1000 pictures of household items and the label next to it. My kids wanted us to "read" those over and over.
My oldest really had no words at 15 mos. At 22 mos. she had only a few verbalizations (like un-unh for no, and uh-hun for yes, bus, mama, dah-dah.) Seriously, she had like 10 sounds when she was 24 mos. We did the child find services around 20 mos. First the child find people came to observe and assess our home and interactions. They told me that first day that they could tell she wasn't autistic b/c of how DD responded and interacted with me. They asked if I was a teacher b/c of all educational toys (blocks, music, books, etc.) I had in the house (apparently it's not like that in a lot of homes). The child find lady would sit on the floor and stack blocks and say "UP!" "UP"... etc. I thought it was a waste of time and my child would look at me (when the child find speech therapist came) and she would be looking at me like "I already know this... duh!" My child was an extremely cautious child. She didn't step off the sidewalk onto the grass willingly. She always understood heights and was never at risk of falling down stairs. She would never climb up on a table. She would burst into tears if brought into a noisy room (we would always go first to a gathering so that the crowd would come upon her slowly). She just isn't a risk-taker at all -- to this day and she's 12.5 yrs old. So, with very few words at around 24 mos. and me feeling that the "speech therapy" was a waste of time, I called and cancelled their services. When she got to 26 mos, she literally started talking a bunch and never shut up since! Seriously -- the words just started coming out. She was absorbing the words all along (as we knew she understood everything), but she just wasn't willing to take the risk of speaking until she was ready. I know other kids who didn't really talk much at all until 24 mos. or so. Don't freak out. Consider your child's personality and whether it seems like s/he is understanding and responding to you. |
Anonymous
It doesn't cause speech delays but it can delay talking in one or both of the languages for a short period of time. |
Anonymous
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I agreed with the suggestion to have him evaluated - will be informative even if he doesn't qualify (they can say see, he's doing XYZ which is why we're not worried and also all these other areas are fine, or obviously, can say yes, we think he needs a little help, which is a good thing to get).
On the cognitive/intellectual delay issue - my daughter had/has a language delay, plus a bunch of other delays (motor skills, etc), and does not have a cognitive delay (though because of the other delays, particularly motor skills, the general developmental testing showed some cognitive delay for a while). So just to reassure you that even if there is a language issue/delay, that doesn't necessarily equate to a cognitive issue. Yes, sometimes one reflects the other, but just noting for you that language delays can and do exist often separate from cognitive delays, if that helps ease your mind at all. |
Anonymous
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DD had the same issue at that age. ChildFind told us not to worry about it but when DD had very little language at about 2 years we called them again. The evaluator again declined services saying some children are just a little delayed and to wait a little longer. We were worried but the evaluator was right and DD's language exploded in the following months.
I hope this is the case with your child, OP. This is apparently not uncommon! |
Anonymous
| Uh, it's also common for it not to explode. I would call. Girls also usually talk much earlier and they are more concerned when they are not. |
Anonymous
| Hearing test |
Anonymous
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8:33 and did not mean OP should not get the child evaluated, just that if she gets things checked out and people are reassuring they are not totally nuts.
Good point about the hearing test. In our case DC was similar to a PP's child in that DC did not like to take risks but DC was also having a lot of ear infections that caused hearing issues at that age and contributed to the speech delay. |
Anonymous
| I would probably wait until 18 months and see if he has a handful of words by then. And keep in mind "da" if used consistently when he sees daddy is actually a word. The words do not need to be fully formed. It's very common for babies to just say the first syllable of a word. |