Worried about 2 yo speach

[Tattoocrazymum]

My little boy is 3 in December and still not talking much.
He started nursery last month and its made me more anxious about his speach, listening to other children his age talking in full sentences.
Some words i can understand like mum, cat, juice, choc (chocolate), apple he can say the last words of it, duck and possibly a few more, but it is only one word or sometimes half the word if he can not say it.
His understanding is much much better, he can follow instructions, pull me by my hand to where he wants to go, points, but he does get incredibly frustrated when we cant understand what he wants.

He had been referred to SALT, waited 3 months to hear from them, had it over the phone because of covid but that was back in august.
Shall i contact them again? I know with covid its not an ideal situation.
Has anyone else got any ideas i can do to help him? I read with him, go through picture books, keep sentences simple
Any advice would be so much appreciated

Chase up SaLT, he needs input. In the meantime look at BBC Tiny Happy People activities for the age range 6 months below his current age and also Leeds Community Health Care YouTube channel For their SaLT top tips animations. I echo what others have said about offering choices, comment using just one or two words but a range of different words and extend what he says to you by adding one more. Avoid asking too many “what’s that” type questions and focus on building his attention and listening. Remember understanding comes before speech and you are his best teacher and role model.

Also, speech sounds aren’t a worry overall at his age, concentrate on understanding, increasing single words and then joining first two words then more all modelled by you.

My ds is exactly as you have described...iv been to salt and im now waiting for more indepth help. Some of the things advised have already been suggested by other posters but one thing i found very helpful and suggested by salt, is the tips given on pininterest...really recommend you download the app....

My DS is in an identical situation and we are just starting the Early Help Assessment process. Have tried multiple times to get a hearing test, without success. He also has waxy outer ears.

Hiya, SLT here! I'd definitely like you to contact me again with your concerns if I was your SLT so do get in touch with the local SLT dept. There are lots of great suggestions for things to try on this thread but it can be hard to know what to focus on out of hundreds of ideas without some SLT assessment so ask them first so you don't spend lots of time on e.g. speech if it's language that needs some time.

Ooh @Abitlikeabiscuit would you mind answering one question for me. My son aged 8 is diagnosed with asd and recently had another speech assesment. He was on the 2nd percentile for Inferential Comprehension. I wondered what this is. I've asked a few people, portage workers, senco's etc, apart from the assessor who I can't get hold of and no-one knows or could explain in layman's terms to me.

@MinnieJackson hmmm I can try! It's a bit like being a "detective" and being able to work out why something happened a certain way or looking at the clues to work out what's happened. So if you hear a clatter in the kitchen, run through and see your dog in front of the overturned biscuit tin on the floor it is a reasonable inference to think that the dog knocked the biscuit tin onto the floor on purpose, although you can't be SURE that's the truth as you didn't actually see it.
For children with ASD, it's often hard to use inference in relation to other people's thoughts and feelings, so for instance you've told your friend an embarrassing secret in confidence and the next day at school other children are pointing and giggling when you come in - you might infer that your friend betrayed your trust.
On one assessment often used (the ACE, maybe that's what was used?) "inferential comprehension" is a specific task with a story about a break-in and they ask questions like "why did the burglar break in at the back of the house, not the front?" with the answer being something like the burglar was trying to avoid being spotted, which requires you to use inference to work out what the burglar was feeling and thinking.
Does that make sense at all?

Thanks so much @Abitlikeabiscuit yes it does.
We were telling jokes this morning and I said 'why did the chicken cross the road?' He replied, 'it's literally none of my business ' 😂