22 month old with delayesd speech

[MercyMe]

My DD is 22 months, and has very few words. She seems to understand everything we tell her ie. go and get the toy etc. But her words are more sounds like ball is baw, yo for yogurt that type of thing. I try to encourage as much as possible but she just doesn't seem interested.

In her short life she has had 5 operations, and various procedures so has been in hospital a fair bit - think this be a factor in it all? She was really quick to walk but I feel that DH and I sort of pushed her into it as we had been told that it would take her a long time to walk.

Does anyone have any tips/advice?

It doesn't sound like much to worry about IMO (I've referred my two eldest to SALT). An awful lot can change in just a month at this age, my twins are 23 months and I can't believe how much their speech has improved in recent weeks. And quite normal for ball to sound like baw etc. Just keep repeating her words back to her and adding to them e.g. yes, that's a ball, a red ball. One of my twins has only started being interested in talking to me (the boy), the girl was always interested, it's just how they are.

She has had a lot to deal with, if she's putting her energy into one area then another area won't move as fast. All IMO of course, based on what you've said about her, is there anything else that's worrying you? If you see the 2yo check that HV's do, it's a very low baseline for language. I tried to refer at the 2y check for ds2, but was told to wait a few months as this is a critical time and language can develop v.quickly.

My daughter started off saying lots of sounds for different words (like ba for ball, ca for cat, bu for book etc), they then gradually got more and more word like. So think that's normal.

Just recently (in the last 2 weeks or so) something has 'clicked' with her and she seems to be able to copy most words that we tell her with ease, whereas she would have struggled previously. She's 21 months.

I've got some friends with children of similar ages and it is amazing how different they are in terms of their speech abilities, so don't worry.

Hope your daughter is ok and well now, by the away.

by the way (sorry).

Both my boys were slow to speak and I worried about it with ds1. By the time ds2 came along I realised that children develop at different rates. 22 months is still very young. Try now to compare her with other children of the same age.
Neither of my boys have issues with speaking (8yo and 4yo) but they were much closer to 3yo before they were anywhere near fluent. If she shows no improvement in the next 12 months then maybe start to look into having her assessed but for the meantime - enjoy the peace!!!

i understand how frustrating this is, you cant help your self but compare them to other children. my ds is 2yr6m and isnt interested in talking atal, he says the odd thing he is seeing a SALT but no progress as of yet,just try keep repeating the words, reading and doing flash cards, also going down to there level and using lots of eye contact helps, its so frustrating i know.

I had similar concerns with my ds. My dd spoke really early on and could say complex sentences around 2. She was always really clear in her speech and wasn't one of those kids whose parents have to 'translate' what they are saying. My second dc is ds and he was completely different. By 2 he could say a handful of words and certainly wasn't linking anything.
To put my mind at rest I had his hearing checked (he was fine) and even had him assessed by a SALT but to be honest she was less than useless and I quickly realised that my instincts were that he was just a bit 'slower' and would get there in the end. He is now 4.1 and his speech is fine and he's a happy sociable chap.
So, what I'm trying to say is that if you are worried perhaps have his hearing checked but to also go by your gut instinct as you know her best.
Good luck.

That is good - she is aware what words sound like. My son is almost 3 and has severe speech delay. He is very bright but can hardly talk - he can't say ANY words that are meant to be a certain word!! He has a very small vocab of a few words that are very clear to anyone - prob about 12 words but that is all

Thanks everyone for your replies, its so useful to speak to other parents about this. I find I compare her to other children which I know isn't fair. I'm probably just more paranoid due to her being in hospital so much I think I will take your advice and talk to SALT, if anything to put my mind at rest. Thank you all for your kind wishes x

Just makes you paranoid, comparing to other dcs or worse their siblings! Hard not to. Sometimes they have SALT clinics at toddler groups etc, might be an easy way to have a chat with someone rather than hassle of referral?