To think wtf?!

[ohcheeseandrice]

Went to the health visitor today started talking about baby nearly crawling and we get to talking about ds (3) and how he took his first steps at 10 months. She then proceeds to tell me
'Well that's why he's got a speech and language delay then'.

For context ds was partially deaf from about 18 months until he was 3 so is now catching up. I've had confirmation that this would've delayed his speech development.

So curious old me questioned this and she goes on to explain that because he was so advanced in walking that all his other developments fell behind.

Am I right to think wtf is she on about?!

There is a saying that says early walker later talker and visa Verda but I assume that's an old wives tail

Dd walked at 9 months, was talking in full sentences by 2. She's very active and a chatterbox so I think that's why she was early in both. I'm sure hearing problems would account for delayed speech much more than early walking.

If she said it jokingly I would've shrugged it off but she was deadly serious and i was

Most health visitors are full of crap and old wives tales, just smile and nod and wave her off

Absolute rubbish DD walked at 10 months and now at 18 months is really advanced with about 60 odd words in her vocabulary well ahead of her peers.

What a load of codswallop. My dd was walking also at 9 months and was not delayed in talking, if anything the opposite. I would imagine being deaf would have a huge impact on his speech and you'd expect him to be speech delayed with a hearing problem surely. She sounds a bit nuts op.

What worries me is she is the meant to be advocating all the referrals and coordinating between professionals, how the hell can I put my trust in this whackadoo

Haha, it's definitely the old wives tales that they're a walker or a talker. Nothing in it. Just smile and nod. Some of the nonsense that is said to you when you have a baby is just funny!

The wives' tale "early walker late talker" or vice versa is just that - a wives' tale, but it does have a vague foundation in truth. Babies/children's development happens in "silos", so if they're hecticly busy climbing dining room chairs and tables when you look away for 4 seconds, and then pulling books out of bookcases to make towers, they won't necessarily be starting to string their first sentences together at the same time. Their little brains can only generally do one thing at a time when they're very small.

My bro was early with both walking and talking. I was late with both. Both of us are fine.

The deafness will have delayed talking probably. But if he's fine now, I wouldn't worry.

Sorry, totally forgot to add that this obviously means nothing when the health visitor is waffling about walking at 10 months and talking at 3 years. That's just coming straight out her backside, OP.

All 3 of my children walked at 9/10 months and were confident walkers

DS1 didn’t utter a word until 2.5
DD was talking like an adult at 18 months and never stopped talking!
DS2 has had to have lots of speech therapy due to glue ear and grommets.

I guess in a loose general way if kids don’t walk until 18 months or so they are more likely to be sat still and listening to everything around them whereas early walkers are off everywhere exploring and less likely to be listening!! As I say its a loose correlation and individual cases will vary!

So a walking child will be able to bring you something or come and tug at you if they want something whereas a non walking child will have to call out for you

Total rubbish

All 4 of mine walked at around the same time ( 12-13 months) but there was a huge difference in their speech development, with about a year between the fastest and the slowest to be able to have a meaningful conversation. So I call BS on her theory.

Totally nonsensical

Doesn’t apply here either. My eldest was the latest walker of my 3 and his speech was probably the weaker out of all of them. He suffers from a stutter now too. My youngest walked (or should I say ran!) at 10 months old and was a VERY early talker. Her vocabulary range was very advanced and still is. She is a complete chatterbox! Total tosh I say.. every baby is completely different!

I've had 'professionals' tell me that babies that skip crawling will develop ASD... Some people come out with all sorts.
Yes there might be some correlation and there might be something to it but no way does one equal another.

It is complete tosh of course. My MW told me to expect an 8lber....then at 40+15 I gave birth to 4lb 14oz baby. HV and MW are there to help and measure and report back, I would take lots of their general comments with a pinch of salt.
She may be lovely in other ways.

I think there is a belief that early walkers are busy focusing on that, and so the language comes later. Certainly my friend whose DS was walking at 9 months still has a pretty small vocabulary at 2.5 (he can run like the wind and hit a tennis ball with a racquet though!). That may be where she's coming from.

But I think it's no more than a belief/anecdotal and I am surprised a health care professional would tell it as gospel. I'd ignore her and speak to your GP if you have concerns about her reports.

my now 10 yo was walking at 8 months - it was bizarre to see such a small baby walking. She didn't really crawl either.

She's not been delayed in anything development wise.
Your HV was speaking nonsense - shock horror!

Rafiki There was a study which showed is a statistical correlation (at 5% level 2-tailed test so not hugely convincing) between missing out the crawling stage and dyslexia, but absolutely no evidence that once causes the other.

Some HV I’ve come across really need to update their training and/or people skills. Others have been ace. Total lottery.

And bollocks like this is why a significant percentage of parents have utterly no time at all for health visitors.

WHY does it seem so difficlut to fucking TRAIN these people in a streamlined, effective way? Some are great. Some are absolute fucknuckles, to put it mildly. And a whole bunch of them somewhere in the middle won't exactly do you harm but come out with a mish mash of outdated advice, old wives tales, and have really REALLY poor levels of understanding of all sorts of stuff on feeding, weaning and development - stuff that even a relatively normally curious parent who is willing to read a bit will know.

After my first child and getting to know this, I simply never considered taking the time to ask HVs if I had an issue. If medical - doctor. If developmental - books, google, MN, friends.

The quality is SO patchy that it has to be the training at fault. Basically, an intelligent and motivated HPC moving into HV will likely be good, anything less than that and they are a wasteland of random outdated information.

Yeah it's bollocks ds2 was walking at 15 months hes severly autistic however and non. Verbal interesting about the non crawling and ASD though because he did crawl