anyone else have a toddler with a big vocab, but no sentences? curious

[drivingmisscrazy]

DD is 20 months, and has (I think) a pretty large vocabulary (conservative guess is about 300 words) - nouns, verbs, adjectives which she uses correctly and in context (discounting the echoing that she does).

But other than the occasional putting together she doesn't yet have any sentences, or they are backwards, so 'necklace...wear'. She once said 'where's sylvia?' (my mother). Anyone else had this with their DCs - I'm not at all worried, just curious as my very limited knowledge of small children suggests that this is slightly unusual. I assume that once she 'gets' it, she'll just talk. She can also get pretty much anything she wants, so has no real reason to hurry. Did anybody else's kid learn like this, or am I just on another planet?

She sounds exactly like my DD.

She's 18 months old and has 250-300 words, including numbers, shapes, colours, body parts and letters but she doesn't talk in sentences either.

She's said 'that's nice' on a couple of occasions but the sentences aren't forthcoming.

She also will not say 'yes' which seems a little odd.

I guess they all learn things slightly differently and you should be very proud as your DD sounds pretty smart to me! :)

My ds is like this and is 2y4m. I'm not worried, but I do find it frustrating. He understands everything but just finds it hard to put words together. He supplements every utterance with extravagant gesturing I tell my mother people who comment that eventually a switch will flick in his brain and he'll just get it. He's much slower than my other two were though.

we do have 'yesss', but rather more of 'no', and a masterful command of imperatives!! we don't have numbers, a few shapes, lots of body parts...yours sounds pretty super too :)

She is! A fervent 'no' accompanied by extreme headshaking is a favourite in our house too! :) She has friends who are the opposite, have few words but put them into sentences. I think DD has learned she gets praise/what she wants from the one word so doesn't need to try any harder! Hope it doesn't mean she'll grow up lazy like her dad! :)

Yes - this was my DS1, in fact up to about 3 yrs old he was all single words. Big vocab but no sentences...100% understandable - one word at a time!!!

then he gradually started saying two words together then 3, I think we had sentences at about 3.5yrs.

He's 4.5 now and I think that was just how he learnt!

sparkle and I take he is chatting away like a mad thing now? I guess it's just different ways of interpreting what's going on around them

I thought this was normal for 20 months-ish? Apparently the average words for 24 months is 50 (heard from hv..) but many have a lot more (I started counting my ds's but when I saw it was more than a couple of hundred i thought no need to count so i think similar to yours), then by age 2 you are looking for them to be putting 2 words together, which your dd is even if its back to front (my ds used to talk like that too, so guessing it is normal). then gradually you see they will start putting a few more together and make simple sentences. I wouldn't be worried at all from what you have said. They don't normally have full sentences @ 20 months, it would be quite advanced. she sounds fine :)

yes, she is fine - I was just curious. It's hard to actually get any proper information about how they acquire language - certainly wouldn't expect full sentences at this point, although some children do have simple sentences at this stage. Some only have a handful of words - they are all slightly different it seems

absolutely chatting away.... he's 4.5 and has no fear at all of grow ups - we went into Longleat house the other day and he surprised one of the custodians by striding up to her and saying "Excuse me - who are those people on the ceiling" and then actually listening to the explanation that it was Diana and the 3 fates....it was a nice painting!!

SandS - brilliant!

My dd is very similar although her vocab is not quite as large, but then she is 17 months old. I think she has about 100 words that she uses properly. She does put words together like "want milk" "Daddy breakfast"

What is really funny is that when I put her in her cot she says "Me Ow!" (She can't say her Ts yet) It sounds like a cat.