2 year old Speech

[Sas0]

My son turned 2 a couple of weeks ago (he was 7 weeks prem) and he’s still not speaking, not even 1 word. I’ve spoke to the health visitors numerous times and they keep telling me to wait however his nursery have now refereed him to a speech therapist. However I’m worried about whether it is just a language/speech delay or is he autistic. He does babble but not all the time. He will go through phases of babbling a lot and making sounds like mama, to just grunting and making sounds that isn’t classed as babble. He responds to his name, he makes good eye contact, he’s very sociable he’s not long started nursery but they’ve said he plays well alongside the other children which is good. He doesn’t point to things with one index finger, instead he’ll reach out with his whole hand or he’ll bring what he wants to me or take my hand and take me where he wants to go. He nods his head for no, he waves bye bye but he doesn’t really clap his hands and he can’t do things such as point to his nose when asked or point to a dog when asked because he simply doesn’t understand the language yet. The only simple commands he understands is things like no or come here and he knows when I’m starting to read his favourite books even if he’s not looking. He runs, climbs and isn’t behind in any other areas other than language and speech and he doesn’t have any sensory issues (sometimes plays with his ears or puts his hands over them if I’m right next to him with the hoover but that’s it). He understands emotions and he understands what things are for when he sees them such as car keys are for the car but he doesn’t understand the word car. Sorry for the long post, does anyone have any experience with anything like this and does it sound like autism or just a very bad language delay?

My son is autistic and was a late talker. He was late with things like waving and clapping etc.
But you are thinking of stereotypes of autistic people, my son loves hugs and is affectionate and has always had good eye contact.
If he's autistic or not, speech and language input is a good thing.
Not sure if that's what you wanted to hear but that's what it was with us, I always feel a bit awkward commenting on these types of threads as I know it isn't what you wanted to hear. If it helps he's 8 now and you wouldn't know he was late talking, he's clever, can speak and read in welsh and English and is good at maths (when he will do the work!)

My nephew didn't talk for ages and would just take people to things that he wanted, wouldn't look at us or talk to us even when he could talk. He's 6 now and he's not autistic as far as I know.

It's very young to diagnose anything based on what you've said about him, but I would accept any help you are offered as well.

@Heartofglass12345 that’s helpful thank you :) can I ask what other signs you had other than the speech delay please?

@Heartofglass12345 also it’s great to hear he now talks!! That’s the main thing I’m worried about, never hearing him speak

Dd2 was 10 weeks prem and never uttered a single word till she was nearly 3.
She never shuts up now

@jesusmaryjosephandtheweedonkey Aw😂 did she have any other delays?

Absolutely none!
She literally was just sat playing one day and asked for a drink!

@jesusmaryjosephandtheweedonkey I have read a lot of kids don’t speak until they fully understand everything! Was her understanding of things good then even if she didn’t speak herself?

Op I can't believe anyone told me you to wait, everyone usually knows early intervention is absolutely key?..

Google, read, research and get books urgently to get stragety to help.
We did some classes and it really helped very simple stuff using a farm toy and animals.
Cow moo, cow in field, cow under table sort of thing.

How to talk in simple sentences to help them and give them choices of say two drinks water or milk and repeat all the time.

Get going op.. It doesn't have to be catastrophic but it also doesn't have to be a good thing.

My 2.5 year old was saying nothing 6 months ago...,she's at 100 words and counting now. My eldest spoke at 10 months, Every child is different.

She understood everything.
Honestly, the only way I can describe it , is it's as though she couldn't be bothered until she had something worth saying.
Her older sister was talking by 1 year and the health visitor was not overly concerned.
I was / am a very relaxed parent and let them go at their own pace .
I had discussed it with Health visitor and GP and we decided to wait and see how it developed as she was just cracking on with everything else.
3 was going to be my cut off point for being so relaxed though

DS2 sounds a bit like your DS though he wasn't premature, he managed to get to 37 weeks before he was induced as he was tiny and now growing.

We weren't really sure how much he understood, he'd drag us and point to what he wanted instead of talking. He really didn't talk until the Christmas day a few months before he turned 3 when he started naming about the presents he got. He went from a couple of words to a couple of words together to short sentences in about a month.

I was getting concerned and had been referred to the speech and language team who told us to do lots of sing song rhyming, try and get him to say missing words in books, that kind of thing. We were doing it all already, I think he just wasn't ready to talk yet.

My son was 10 weeks premature too. You wouldn't know now that he didn't talk properly until around 3, he would say the odd word before that but not a great deal.

Other signs for us were lining things up, such as colouring pens. Rather than actually colouring he would line up the pens according to colour.
He would line up all his trains and lie down and look at them.
He was obsessed with numbers and could recognise them and count really high when he was young, even when he couldn't talk he could count lol. If we tried to read to him all he would want to do was look at the page numbers and watch videos of numbers on YouTube.

He taught his little brother to count when he was a year old because he was so obsessed with numbers lol. I have videos of his brother "counting" before he could talk properly when he was 1, and he spoke really young, it was a shock when his
brother was so much older! He was 7 weeks early and we are querying autism with him as well, although he is very different from my oldest!

My nephew had speech and language therapy and it seemed to help, he hasn't got any problems talking now

First thing - get his hearing checked & check with both your dm & dmil & find out if anybody else in the family was a slow talker or had any speech issues. Has he had lots of colds & blocked nose - that can affect speech. from what I gather he won't be alone amongst many other dc who are behind in language & development - thank you covid the gift that keeps giving.

It’s good that nursery have referred him because he is behind. Whether he has autism or not, speech therapy and lots of work from you now is really important.

At this age his lack of understanding/comprehension is probably more concerning than the lack of speech. You’ll get people piling in saying their child didn’t say a word til 3 but they very likely had good understanding well before this, and were probably communicating with gestures.

My nephew has a speech delay (and is probably autistic though not yet diagnosed at 3.5) and his parents just buried their heads in the sand about it and kept saying he was just a late bloomer. At 2 he wasn’t babbling or pointing, and nowhere near saying words. He finally got some speech therapy at 3 and is now saying the odd single word, but his therapist has been hammering home how important parental input is and the earlier the better.