Speech

My son will be 18 months on August 6th. He’s not talking very much yet. He can make a few animal sounds if asked “what does a lion say” etc. but won’t do it on his own if he’s looking at a book. He says mama when babbling but calls everyone dada mostly. He says vroom for cars. He says “dus” for bus. he makes the /d/ sound a ton, way more than other sounds. He can sign more, all done, and help. He did just get ear tubes about a week ago so maybe that will help? He understands SO much when I talk to him and can follow directions so well. Just not much talking. Should I be concerned or push for speech therapy at his 18 month appointment? At his 15month his doctor said he would have an explosion of language between then and 18 months and it just hasn’t happened yet.

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Hey momma, I am a big miss Rachel advocate. I found 2 videos I liked for my baby and kept them on repeat. My baby is 16 months sings, dances, talks a lot! He even surprises me sometimes. Give it a try

Hey Momma! Same here as Incognito! Huge Ms. Rachel advocate and Sped Teacher here, my daughter is 17 months, she babbles, talks, signs and sings. We work with her, but owe a lot to Ms. Rachel too. Her videos and live streams use a lot of speech techniques and repetition.

I second miss Rachel! My son is 17m and I was a preschool teacher for years and specialized in 12-24 month olds and she teachs everything I would teach and I work from home with my son so he watches her when I have to really focus and he's doing the movements to songs says 19 words. Puts a couple woods together and expresses himself so well even takes deep breathes when he gets frustrated but remember every kid is different and closer to 2 is when language really takes off

We don’t use ms Rachel but have heard good things about her. my son can say some sentences. “what are you doing” “I don’t know” and a lot of my family members names, he says cow, shoe, chick, our dogs name which is Tux, or dog. He says cat as well. I don’t know how many words is average but he can say about 25 words I haven’t kept count. He definitely uses some more than others. He’s said please once and thank you mommy but hasn’t said it since and that was a couple weeks ago. We try not to compare him to other kids just because every baby is different! His cousin is 6 months older and is semi bilingual since they speak Spanish and English around her.

If it helps, our pediatrician said they look for at least 10-20 words by 18 months. Since he just turned 17 months, you have a little time :) Signs count, animal noises count (including if they use the animal noise instead of the animal name), noises like vroom or crash count, approximations count as long as it’s the same thing every time (for example, my toddler says “muh-muh” for “muffin” and “nur” for “nurse”). I’ve been a little worried about my toddler’s speech too, but LO spontaneously started saying 9 words in the last 2 days (recently turned 19 months) and I’m a bit less worried now haha. Many toddlers have a huge explosion of language between 18-24 months. Keep working with him, ask him lots of questions, read him lots of books, talk about everything in your day with him. Kids are little sponges at this age! The fact that he understands you so well shows he’s learning new things every day 😊

Definitely push for speech. Nothing but good can come from getting him extra help. I recently put my son in a special school that practices speech 2 times a week and omg, he’s developing so much quicker.

@Kaitlyn this makes me feel so much better! My 16 month old and I owe a lot to Ms Rachel too! I was doing so much for her until 13 months and I had to go back full time wfh bc of finances so her screen time with Ms Rachel increased but she’s still not talking much at 16 months. I’m wondering if I need to start cutting her paci time

@Rebecca thank you for sharing this!! This means maybe we are better off than I thought. I get a ton of animal sounds and she mimics my funny actions from books when we read like I’ll say “he fell off and bumped his head!” And touch my head and say oww!!! And she does that now, and she says Che Che for cheese

OP We are at 16 months and I’m so worried so thank you for posting this! We do Ms Rachel and read a LOT and I try yo play pretend and talk to her and my job is in the phone so she hears and sees talking constantly. I would say definitely discuss this with the doctor though still. I bet the tubes were a huge part of this but early intervention is always best! If they agree, then a speech therapist can also help you with tips on what to do on your own too I also just recently looked into speech Blubs an app; I’m not a huge fan of handing my iPad to my toddler though so I’m on the fence on that. Maybe if there’s a kids tablet that she only has that on and it’s only a certain time of day. I am still mulling that over but it’s supposed to be really helpful and engaging to 18-3years old I think was the range

It sounds like he is doing well! That’s quite a few sounds and words.

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