How much does your almost-3-year-old talk?

[Tailfeather]

My son's nursery teacher has just pulled me aside saying she's worried about his speech and that I should get him a hearing test and look into speech therapy. I'm a bit thrown as I thought he was progressing nicely. He says some words perfectly. Some in baby talk. And some that don't really makes sense. He will put 4 or 5 words together in a sentence. He is 33 months old. Does this sound really backward? I'm worried about how much I should be worried!! If that makes sense!

Thank you.

I've just signed up here for a similar problem. My almost 4 year old doesn't talk to his nursery teachers very much. Sometimes i find it hard to understand what he is saying but 95% i can. At home he is confident and talkative but not at nursery. I am so worried about him starting primary school next September.

My DD is 2.5. There are a couple of letters she can't pronounce but everyone seems to understand her well enough. She's very chatty and can have little conversations with you, asking questions etc.

They are sometimes quieter in nursery, its only recently nursery have stopped commenting on how quiet she is and she's been there since January. How did your HV think his speech was at his last review?

See if your local speech and language dept have a self referral clinic

My DS is 2 years and 9 months old and we’ve been seeing a speech & language therapist for the last 3 months after we were worried about his speech. He says words but doesn’t link them together to make sentences and he doesn’t understand everything we say. If you were to ask him a question he wouldn’t really take you on. He’s definitely picking up more words everyday so we’re getting less worried as we think it’s a developmental delay. Can you request speech & language help through your health visitor?

There’s a helpful ages and stages checker here which gives you an idea of what’s within the range of normal: ican.org.uk/i-cans-talking-point/parents/ages-and-stages/.

Thanks. I have a doctor's appointment and hearing test for him next week.

He's only just started nursery this September and I wonder whether I've curbed his development as I understood all of his cute little code words. I did correct him. But I think he's now getting frustrated that others can't understand him.

He was fine at his 27 week appointment.

X

@gothicsprout Thank you. That's useful. I think he ticks all of those! But I guess the nursery worker has dealt with loads more toddlers than me and I should listen to her.

I just want to give you some hope based on my experience with my DD. She had about 5 words at 3, and was referred to speech therapy. She progressed really well and now in her teens is doing very well and in top sets for all set subjects. It's not always an indicator of how intelligent they are. Her peer was talking very early but isn't a super clever child now. Stay positive, they are all individual.

Has he attended nursery for long? I think they talk more quickly if other kids talk to them than If at home with just dp’s? It’ll be fine I’m sure.

Thank you @bluedomino xxx

@Elieza No, about 6 weeks. And I definitely think I slowed him down as I understood everything he was 'saying' and understand his baby talk. But he's getting frustrated now as the other kids don't understand what he's saying and ignore him. :(

My oldest couldn't say a huge amount that was understandable at that age. My youngest on the other hand.... verbal diarrhoea I swear the boy was born talking!
Don't see it as a bad thing - accept any help you're given it's all for your little boy!

I've got 4 kids and none of them have been early or advanced talkers, my eldest was even referred to speech therapy after a hearing test was done.

However by 3 years old they were all talking really well. My youngest is 2.4 and he talks in 5/6 word sentences, asks questions, makes statements, counts and knows colours and a couple of songs. Like I said previously I don't think any of mine have been good talkers so I'd be worried he needed speech therapy if I was you. My son found it really helpful

OP I can’t help with your question but please don’t blame yourself. I always find it tempting to blame yourself for any problems but that’s to be resisted. It sounds to me like you’ve done a sterling job, looking after him, chatting away and building up his vocab, gently saying the correct words after his cute toddler version and generally being a supportive, loving mum. I’m not sure what else you could’ve done and whether it would make any difference. If there is a slight issue it sounds like you’ll be all over any extra practice. Good luck.

My little brother was a very late talker, he barely said anything at 3, around 4 words I think. Went to speech therapy and he bloomed. He’s now 20 and studying engineering at uni.

Honestly it’s terrifying and such a worry when you’re in the midst of something perhaps not being as it should be, but 99% of the time everything is absolutely fine and they just need a little help.

From the sounds of it maybe nursery are being a little over cautious? It’s worth getting an appointment anyway just to check though.

They are all different but a nursery worker will be used to similar aged kids and so if she’s flagged it up as a possible concern then I think you should take her advice even if everyone on the internet is saying don’t worry!!

DS1 didn’t utter a SINGLE word apart from uh until he was 28 months. Once he started talking he soon caught up (within a few weeks) and we also realised he could read fluently so not talking didn’t have an impact on his academic ability and he’s now in year 8 and has an astounding vocab

DD was complete opposite and at 18 months was holding long grown up conversations. HV was astounded at he conversational skills at her 2 year check up!
She’s now 11 and doesn’t stop talking!’

DS2 has hearinf problems glue ear and grommets and hearing loss in one ear due to a ruptured ear drum and his speech was affected. He had speech therapy for several years. It also impacted his reading as he had learnt to say words wrong so when learning phonics etc some words didn’t made sense as he couldn’t connect him to words he actually said. I felt awful when we found out his hearing was so bad as I hadn’t realised and we also could understand him so didn’t realise that other people couldn’t as well as we could.

I’ve had one talker and one who could hardly speak at 3yo. DD talked and talked, was always asking questions and was very inquisitive, but DS could only say things like ‘what you doing?’ or ‘where you going?’. Now At 10 yo DS is the talker and his sister who is now 13 is quieter. Interestingly, they both have quite severe dyslexia, but their language skills at pre school were so different that I’m not convinced that where they are at age 3 is a huge indicator of how they will fair later on. Why not take the referral and see what the professionals say. It will either help or put your mind at rest.

I’ve just looked back through videos of my dd at that age and she was speaking sentences that you were able to get the gist of. Just been watching one of her and the cat playing
“Where’s dethers gone?”
“The feathers have all been chewed”
“Oh no, cat you’ve lost all dethers. Day cheese for the doto”
“It’s not a photo it’s a video we’re taking; maybe we can find more feathers for her toy”

Etcetc
She is currently under speech therapy as at now years old she still can’t say the letter “s” at the beginning of a word. If in doubt I’d ask your nursery for a referral to speech therapy. We’ve always been told not to correct the words in such a way as a correction but more like above where the correct word is reinforced afterwards. She was really struggling until age 3 1/2 and it clicked for her over the summer. We’re just working on our sss sounds and sh sounds now

They are all different but a nursery worker will be used to similar aged kids and so if she’s flagged it up as a possible concern then I think you should take her advice even if everyone on the internet is saying don’t worry!!

This ^

Also, a hearing test is always good advice for a dc not talking as well as 'expected for their age. Loads of dc go through temporary and / or partial hearing losses during the pre-school years.
It is good the Nursery have brought it up with you now, so you can work together to help him.