To be very concerned about my 18 month old son

[holsieboo]

My son has just turned 18 mo and is still not talking very much. He can only say a few words (I just counted seven words that he regularly says) but he misses the end consonants of words. I.e. Ball is bah, Dog is doh, Bath is ba, Bottle is booh etc. I am really worried about this and I don't know what to do to help him. My DP thinks he is fine and that IABU to worry and stress so much.

Sounds normal to me.
Mine has just turned 2 and still doesn't string words together. I also have to translate most of what he says because, like yours, ball is 'boh' etc. They'll get it sometime!

A friend recently told me that her 19 mo daughter used up to 50 different words!

Other parents lie/exaggerate. A lot. Remember this for the next 18 years.

Thats within normal for that age group. Has his hearing been checked recently? Might be worth it for reassurance. As mother to a 3 yr old who has just started talking, i know its soul destroying when all of their peers are jabbering away.

It is a good idea to go to a speech therapy drop in for a chat and informal assessment. So he is in the system then if he does need some speech therapy you can get it. Some children will need some extra help. But try not to stress. Keep talking to him describing things in simpe terms naming things counting colours oh look at the orange leaves etc etc

Offer choices red car or blue car?
Milk or juice ? Toast or cereal? Keep encouraging communication .

DS was 6 last month. I remember at his 2 year check, one of the milestones was whether he had 30 words. He didn't, but by Christmas we couldn't stop him talking. Just after Christmas he told one of his nursery nurses that his Mummy had a baby in her tummy. I did but we hadn't told him! Just shows how much they pick up just by listening.

In my experience most kids don't really start talking till 2. My mum says that in her day they used to say 'walk at 1, talk at 2'. So I don't know why people now say 18 months as I hardly know any who talked then. It's such weird advice, it makes first time mums worry and it's just wrong.

Is he crawling? If he crawls and is starting to walk then he's fine.
DD said practically nothing except 'da' and 'ma' until her second birthday and then she started talking in full sentences. I think she was just waiting until she could do it properly. Don't worry, just keep chatting to him and he'll be fine.

My DC3 was a very late talker...didn't really start till 3...then stuttered for 6 months...then we couldn't shut him up...we joked that he'll be a politician when he's older...in the debating club at school and took leads in most of the school plays...now he's 17, back to grunting!!...try not to worry OP..as other PP have said, if he seems to understand you and doesn't seem to have hearing problems....RELAX...Take it from me...a Mum with lots of experience...nanny, childminder, x childs nurse,...stop at once with comparing him to other children...it wont help as all children develop so differently and they all get there....( Unless they have special needs which is a different thread)

Dd1 had 200 words at 18mo (no lie, I wrote them all down ). Ds had 3. At 4 and 6 they both speak fine, and you certainly couldn't tell who was the early talker. Don't worry!

Mine went from saying nothing, to speaking in full sentences. But she could communicate her needs, without bothering to talk.

As long as he can get you to understand what he wants in other ways, then don't worry. If there is no non verbal communication then I'd look for help now.

My son is 22 months and was the same. I was worried because dd was much earlier in speaking. But in last month or so he has really taken off and is starting to say words so that we can understand them properly. I think he was just waiting until he could do it properly.

DS1 was a very slow speaker. Was very worrying at the time. At just under 2yo, he only had about 10 words. By 2.5 he had about 100. Now he's 10 and has just had excellent reports at new school for literacy and numeracy. He loves reading and art, isn't much of a chatterbox compared to some of his peers, but it all came good in the end.

Its not normal within their guidelines.

20 words by 18 months but many of our friends dc are saying sentences and expressing themselves much more.
You have to have guidelines but thats all they are - guides.

Keep an eye but try not to worry I know its hard but he has a few months yet to start before, more grounded worry should start.

I know posters mean well and its v reassuring to hear of so called late speakers but this is the age when other things do flag up which is why HP like to keep an eye on things as if there is a problem, early intervention is KEY.

My DS is also 18 months, and says the same words you have used in your example in exactly the same way - no end sound.

Also, Mummy is mu, daddy is dee, Grampa is pa, shoes are buuus, car is dah, man is ma, bag is ba.

So, he has several 'words' but non of which are fully formed yet.

At 18m the guideline is can they say about 10words, and about 50 at aged 2. My eldest is 19m and can say 100+ words. And believe me, it does have it's disadvantages!!

Focus more on what your little one can understand, and then the speech will go from there

DS is almost 2 and only just recently has he started saying things that everyone can understand. Prior to that it was just OH and I that could interpret what he was saying.

It's still mainly just one word at a time although he does say "I love you", Daddy gone work" and a few other short sentences.

In my area you don't have the 2 year check until closer to 2.5 (that is what they recommend) and barring any hideous problems they wont refer you to speech therapy before then either.

My son had barely the 5 words ' expected' at the 18mths check. By his second birthday he had over 150 words and was using sentences. I wouldn't worry just yet.

18 months is DEFINITELY not too young to worry about any developmental problems. I was incredibly frustrated because I knew something was 'wrong' with ds1 at 15ms and kept being told to sit and wait...oh, and well meaning friends kept telling me endless stories of late talkers that they knew of. In our case it was a godsend that I didn't buy into all of that and listened to my gut.

The guidelines obviously don't apply to every child but are a v useful marker of what MOST children are doing by a certain age.

Having said that I was much more worried about ds1's lack of receptive understanding than his lack of speech. And now with hindsight I can see his lack of imitation and desire to share attention were big red flags too. It wasn't just one thing.

Your son seems to have more of a pronunciation problem than anything else and on the face of it that's v reassuring. It's something that should sort itself out in good time. To reassure yourself further google the m-chat test, designed to be done at around 18ms

Id wait another 6 months to a year then if the same issues are there then ask for a speech therapy referral just to check there are no delay issues.
I couldn't tell a word my eldest said at that age and put up with endless well meaning people saying there was nothing wrong.
It turned out she had 3 separate speech delays. Speech therapy from 3 till around 6 brought everything back to her peers levels and there's no trace now at all ??

DS had very few words at 18m. I was a bit concerned. His speech came on in leaps and bounds between 2 and 3. He's now nearly 6, very bright and a real chatterbox!

DD is 18m. She has more words than DS had but they all seem to sound the same! So, she says "ba" for ball, and bath, and balloon. And bee for bee (we have a book about a bee) and also meaning the cbeebies game on my phone. She says "daddy" for daddy, teddy and her brother (his name sounds nothing like "daddy'). She can say mummy, mumma (meaning breast milk) Yay and her new word is no. That's her entire vocabulary i think. My friends kid of the same age can talk in sentences. I'm not worried though, i now realise they all develop at different rates. The

Our son has a PDD-NOS diagnosis due to a severe speech disorder and what has now been 'upgraded' to a moderate delay. It was at about the same age as your son that we started noticing problems. Everyone told us not to worry about it, that boys usually take a bit longer (our daughter was almost fully conversational by 2). I really wish we had ignored that advice and pursued diagnosis/therapy earlier (he was almost 4 before he started getting speech therapy after an initial diagnosis of severe delay at 3.5). At 8 he is still attending weekly but we can understand him 90% of the time now - at four he was practically non-verbal.

It doesn't hurt to get it checked out. It could if you leave it.

My DD is 2 and doesn't speak in sentences yet. Just keep talking and singing to him. My little one can join in singing songs by just adding the words that she knows

My DD has repeated "Holiday" and "Sunny" in last hour which surprised me.

How much receptive language should he know at this age? He doesn't respond to me asking him questions I.e. were is mummy? Or what do lions say? Or do you want bottle? Now I am worried again and it's ruining our holiday.