20 month old speech not where it should be- advice needed.

[Jbirds]

Hello,

I have a beautiful son who is 20months old and in my eyes- perfect in every way, but I wanted to speech advice please.

At 14months he was saying quite a few words:
-Grandad
-Mama
-Dada
-Nana
-Duck
-Bird
-Car
-Banana
-No
-Gone
-Hat

Now he is 20 months and we have regressed to
-Mama
-Yes
-Duck
-Gone
-Dada occasionally
-Cow
-Dip

Sounds for animals are limited to RAAAHHH when he sees a lion, dinosaur, bear or tiger and he exhaled air rapidly through his lips when he sees hot food. He also pushes air between his lips for dog- for the oof sound in woof.

I’m aware that this isn’t completely normal as his speech seems to be getting worse rather than improving. We have made a referral to SALT but not sure how much they will do as he is under two and the waiting lists after COVID are rather long (up to 2 years in some places).

Does anyone have any advice or has anyone been through something similar?

TIA for any help than can be given.

Get his ears tested straight away

Use signs eg makaton to supplement
Use and show photos and symbols to support communication

Have a look at ican website
How is his other development?
How is Play and understanding?
Do the m-chat check list

Look at the Baby Talk programme. The book is very woffly, but there are some good tips for play based activities developing language.

Simplify your own language. Short simple sentences, use very expressive facial expressions. Eg 'Are you thirsty Billy, would you like a drink? Here's some water' it's 'Billy thirsty? Want drink? Then you wait and wait for him to respond. Support the interaction with a prop (favorite cup etc)

The usual course recommended for this age group is Hanen- it takes two to talk. Have a look on YouTube, im sure there are lots there.

My advice would be ask for and accept any help you can get but don't panic.

DS didn't say a word till after his 2nd birthday but caught up fast. He's 12 now, never stops talking, has a great vocabulary, quite bright, very sociable and confident.

But if there's help going - don't hang around, take it.

I wouldn’t worry just yet. At 13 months my daughter learnt and said about 10 words for about a week. Then she pretty much stopped saying anything until 18 months then from about 22 months her language developed really quickly. Quite a lot of her peers were 2.5-3 before they started saying much but now at 4 they all speak pretty well.

My twins are both autistic and both regressed about 18 months - one never had any speech and the other lost the limited speech he had. There were other signs - no pointing, limited interest in other people, lots of repetitive behaviours etc. They are nearly 5 now and still no speech but they are doing well with PECS.

I would ask your HV to do the 2 year check as early as possible (it can be done before 2, there’s a different questionnaire) - that will give you a better idea of whether there might be a wider issue. Hearing check is a good idea.

Does he understand words? That’s more important at this stage than speech really - if they don’t understand words they won’t talk. Mine are just starting to understand now.

I don't really have a feel for what's normal - my DD's speech was excellent and 18mo DS has only started (badly) saying a few words in the last week or two. I wouldn't panic though, just do the basics - lots of nursery rhymes, books, give him time to respond etc.

Love that one of his words is dip though. Priorities 👌

Thanks for this. His understanding is very good. He’s always been able to understand us and can follow commands well. His vocabulary is very good too as we read so many books together in the day. He loves animals to can point to almost all the bugs, sea creatures, animals etc in his books.

He understand more complex instructions such as “pick up your crisp packet and put it in the bin.” He will then do this. Or, “Go to the living room and sit down then you can have your biscuit.” He will then sit down and say “yum yum.”

But the majority of his communication is through pointing and grunting and occasional words- as above.

His understanding sounds amazing. I assume you've spoken to your HV if a referral to SALT has been made? I think sometimes they can seem to regress because they've got other things going on developmentally as well.

Thank you all so much for this advice. I’ll try and get through and respond to everyone who took the time to write messages on here. Super helpful!

Thank you so much. I’ll look at this in the evening when he’s in bed.

This is really reassuring- thank you. I’m so excited for him to be talking my ear off, but also trying hard to to wish away each day with him. Such a tough balance.

I suppose it’s part of being a parent- the worrying and worrying and a little more worrying. 😜

Don’t underplay what you’re seeing and worrying about when you speak to the gp/hv/slt etc. It can feel deeply disloyal to be negative about your child, or you can find yourself looking for validation that everything is ok. But they won’t read between the lines.

This too has crossed our mind, but other than speech regression and occasionally not responding to his name or listening to us he seems ok. He loves watching other children play and will smile in response to us smiling. When I got upset the other day he said “awww” and held my hand.

It’s easy to say, but honestly try not to worry. At 2, I don’t think my son was saying as much as you have listed. At his 27 month HV check she put a SALT referral through for him, which at 3 years we haven’t heard back from.

However, by 2.5 years his speech just exploded and you cannot stop this boy from talking

Of course sometimes there’s a reason, but many really do progress at their own pace

Sorry - reading that back seems very doom and gloom. It’s just that it’s harder to get help than it should be and at the start of getting ds’ speech delay investigated I wasn’t emphatic enough.

My ds, now a teenager, was exactly the same as a toddler. The key thing we found was to not make decisions for him and to give him choices. Instead of giving biscuits, say do you want a biscuit or a yogurt? Then he has to either point, speak or use the sign (makaton was a god send and don’t worry, using signs only improves their communication it doesn’t hold their speech back). We were also encouraged to do a commentary when playing with toys, holding back on asking questions. So for example, “the duck is splashing in the pond, splash splash” rather than “where’s the duck, what’s he doing?”.

When we did speech therapy, there was a lot of focus on making noises to accompany play and using makaton to say please and thank you. To reassure you though, my son went from 6 words at 22 months to over a hundred within a few weeks once it ‘clicked’. He is now in the top set in everything at school, doing his GCSEs next year. When he started nursery at 3 the school were unaware he’d had a speech delay until I told them! They said they hadn’t noticed a difference between him and the other children.

That's good that he's got the SALT referral but try not to worry, some children do regress in one area while they're working on another area, or if there's some stress going on (any changes in his life recently?) my daughter regressed in speech when there were some changes going on in our lives but caught up again by around 2 years old.

@Jbirds

Thanks for this. His understanding is very good. He’s always been able to understand us and can follow commands well. His vocabulary is very good too as we read so many books together in the day. He loves animals to can point to almost all the bugs, sea creatures, animals etc in his books.

He understand more complex instructions such as “pick up your crisp packet and put it in the bin.” He will then do this. Or, “Go to the living room and sit down then you can have your biscuit.” He will then sit down and say “yum yum.”

But the majority of his communication is through pointing and grunting and occasional words- as above.

This was my ds at aged 2. He was able to follow instructions etc. He did actually have speech problems and went to a brilliant speech unit for nearly 3 years. He has speech dyspraxia. He is fine now and in mainstream school (still not 100%) but that early intervention really helped. Can you pay for a private assessment? Or speech therapy? Hopefully it will be nothing and he'll just start talking, as much as posters say not to worry I know how difficult it is. Especially when you are comparing them to other children of a similar age. As another poster said you've got real concerns that need to be addressed. I was told so many times "oh so and so didn't speak til x age". Great, but that's not really helpful to me, just made me feel worse to be honest like the problem wasn't really a problem. We had many days of tears and frustration. It really helped making up our own sign language to communicate his needs (well dc made it up l, I just learnt what he needed).

My DS didn’t start to use words (not even Dada) until he was 3 and short phrases at 3.5, fully caught up by 5.

By all means have his hearing tested and investigate speech therapists if you like. Equally you could leave it 6 months and give him some more time.

We were worried sick because other well meaning people made us feel it was a huge deal. Wish we had trusted our instincts which was that he was just delayed. He was an extremely laid back happy baby and toddler. 17 now and still very laid back and doing great in school.

Try not to worry, 20 months is so so young.

I suspect you have read of regression of communication skills and autism.

both of mine were late talking. 1 suddenly took off at just before age two . we were worried about not making the quota of words but within a month was achieving something like 5 times the words needed for the two year check. 1 needed speech therapy but was achieving highly in speech by the time reassesed in early KS2 and also taught themselves sign language from Something Special.

Hey!
My LO has been referred for SALT and also to peads, but he is older than your DC. 20 months is still young and he has time to get it still.
We’ve had a lot of help from our HV and these are the things we’ve done;

• hearing test. We were told this is the first thing SALT would ask about so it’s worth getting this done.
• get rid of the dummy if there is one
• repeat words 3 times (eg; look at the red bus, that’s a big bus, hi to the bus)
• offer him two things whether it’s two different cups or books, (eg: would you like the red cup or the blue cup)
• always give pauses to allow a little time for an answer to something
• sing lots nursery rhymes these are brilliant for picking up speech
• bubbles, blow them then stop and ask 3 times if they would like more.

I hope this helps!

My daughter developed until ages 2 and then struggled to progress to full sentences. She's 7 now and is immature with some speech sounds but she also never shuts up and has a wide vocab and good receptive language.
NHS salt will not consider until aged 2 and a half but all the advice listed above is a great starting point. Do not worry. Early intervention is key here (which you are doing)

This sounds totally normal. He’s only 20 months I really wouldn’t worry. He’ll be talking before you know it x