To be concerned about my 18 month olds development

[anxlousmummy]

Hi, I have a 18 month old boy and I'm slightly concerned about his development.

He has only started to walk in the last few days but still not 100% walking.

Doesn't recognise his name when I'm calling him. If I call his name he will not look at me at all.

Isn't talking much, I would say 5-6 words? He says "dada" he will say "catch" when throwing a ball, will say "nana" when he sees a banana. Calls the cat "luna". Constantly says "no".

I believe he understands more. If I say "phone" he will put his hand to his ear or if I say "book" or "ball" he will go and grab those things.

He makes eye contact okay and he loves a laugh (is always laughing)

He has started spitting which has concerned me.

I worry about autism. I do believe he is slightly behind with his walking and his speech.

Does this seem a cause for concern?

Hard to say. 18 months is still within the normal range for walking, albeit at the later end. If he understands words that’s good, although 5 words is a bit lower than average I would say. I don’t think you’re quite at the red flag stage but it wouldn’t hurt to get in touch with Speech and Language UK. They have a hotline and can help with ways to bring his language skills on.

Is he above average size? Mine were around the same age starting to walk but they were huge so figured it was harder manoveruing a bigger body.

Doesn’t sound too far off my son who is also 18 months. He’s also recently started walking but not quite reach the stage where he’s actually walking all the time to get around rather than crawling if you see what I mean.

On the answering to his name thing, it sounds stupid but how much do you actually use his name? My daughter didn’t really respond to hers much when she was a baby but I realised actually I called her sweetheart, darling etc most of the time so she probably didn’t even realise it was her bloody name! After that I made a lot more effort to be like “come on Jane, Jane’s turn then mummy’s turn, ohhh kisses for Jane, etc” and she picked it up quite quickly

I had DC1 who was not long crawling at 18m, never mind walking. And DC2 who was speaking at a similar level to yours. It was less worrying, as DC1 talked non-stop, and DC2 was running around, so only a single problem each. But both were within the range of normal and both worries long forgotten by the time they were 2. Worth mentioning to the health visitor though, they may refer to e.g. physio.