My feed
Premium

Please
or
to access all these features

Talk to others about child development and behaviour stages here. You can find more information on our development calendar.

Behaviour/development

Toddler's speech regressing - anyone else experienced it /able to help?

15 replies

lisalisa · 18/02/2006 23:19

Message withdrawn

OP posts:
Report
Pruni · 18/02/2006 23:21

Message withdrawn

Report
mszebra · 18/02/2006 23:22

The repeating thing is really common, DD did it. They don't know that it sounds improper, they just think they're emphasising or they are trying to get the momentum into their thoughts. I wouldn't worry about that.

The unclear thing could be feeling she has to speak fast before your attention wanders off (understandable now that the household is busier).

I wonder if it would help if you could make it clear to her that she has your full attention when she speaks...?

Report
Marina · 18/02/2006 23:25

Dd is three months older than yours dd, and she has certainly, recently been using, "erm" a lot, repeating words, sort of stuttering over them. Have seen Pruni's David Crystal statement or similar in other books about child development.
Dummy use is not likely to be a factor (dd doesn't have one, several children the same age at nursery do, their speech is all at roughly the same level) but I can see that an uncurled, starting to take notice, 3 monther might make a smart toddler more jealous than a tiny newborn. Just a thought.

Report
Hattie05 · 18/02/2006 23:25

Yes stammers can be very common in childhood, and disappear on their own.

My dd does it infrequently, and several children i cared for in nursery had stammers that to my knowledge never developed into anything.

My dd has always had large vocab, but as she's getting older (now 3) she seems to like babbling baby rubbish.
I often think that once the novelty has worn off a new development then its not so fun to do, they don't get as much praise, and therefore try some other techniques, or get a bit lazy.
I know your dd isn't babbling, but could there be a similar theory behind it? esp with change - new baby in the house etc.

Report
lisalisa · 18/02/2006 23:29

Message withdrawn

OP posts:
Report
oops · 18/02/2006 23:53

Message withdrawn

Report
singersgirl · 19/02/2006 07:49

I found that my younger son was very clear when he first started talking, but got less clear the more he said - almost as if he had too much to say and couldn't wait. The repeating thing is vey common and I think is called 'disfluency'. It usually sorts itself out after a couple of months.

Report
albatros · 19/02/2006 10:51

From what I have read stammering is quite common at this age. And they often have difficulty getting all the words out as they have a much wider vocabluary to choose from.

I don't want to hijack your thread but if any SALTs are reading this could you tell me what age echolia stops being used.

Report
throckenholt · 19/02/2006 11:37

there something called someting like a developmental stammer - at some stages the mouth can't physically keep up with what the child is trying to say - so they end up stammering or repeating things.

Ds1 did it a huge amount - usually in phases of 2-3 months between the age of about 2.5 and 4 (now at 4.5 he doesn't do it).

Ds2 is starting to do it at just over 3.

Try and keep relaxed about it and see if it improves over the next few months. If in 3 months time you see no difference then ask the gp/hv for help.

Report
lisalisa · 21/02/2006 22:01

Message withdrawn

OP posts:
Report
mogwai · 22/02/2006 21:31

Dummy wouldn't suddenly cause speech to be unclear unless she had suddenly started to use new sounds which would normally be made behind the teeth, eg t,d,s,z, as it's hard to make those sounds clearly when you have a dummy in your mouth.

The only other thing I can think of is her hearing - has it always been ok? Might be worth getting that checked

Mogwai (SLT)

Report
Socci · 22/02/2006 21:43

Message withdrawn

Report
geekgrrl · 22/02/2006 21:50

as mogwai said, how's her hearing? My NT dd developed glue ear one winter and we noticed because her speech had become so unclear. She also kept saying 'What?' all the time but we thought initially that she was just being lazy.
It went away on it's own after a few months and her speech returned to normal.

Report
Socci · 22/02/2006 22:49

Message withdrawn

Report
Socci · 23/02/2006 19:34

Message withdrawn

Report
Please create an account

To comment on this thread you need to create a Mumsnet account.