Speech development at 14 months old

[Pascha]

DS has never really been a babbler. He is just not really bothered about vocalising very much. If you start him off with bababa dadada he will join in and add a few more sounds, but nothing approaching a word yet. Even dadada is general, not specific to daddy. He just seems happy being quiet if you don't push him.

He mixes well with other children on a regular basis and we talk to him all day long. He understands lots, he reacts to sounds, he points out objects, he follows commands very well. Just not a talker.

I'm not worried (yet), but I do feel the need for some reassurance. Its all fine at this age isn't it?

Yeah...lol....course it is! Don't worry. x

I know its ridiculous really, just all his little playmates seem to be storming away with cute little gibberish conversations with the occasional real word and my Boy just seems happy to listen instead. Mind, he was walking earlier than most of them.

Mine 17m only just walking and only a couple of words!!!

Yes its very normal. However, if you wanted to improve communication whilst he is preverbal I can't recommend signing enough it really works and helps relieve some of his frustration of not being able to tell people around them what he wants you could try joing a signing class, get a dvd, watch something special on cbeebies.

Try singing with him - buy some books of simple nursery rhymes with a CD and you can sing along to the CD and get him to "join in".

Baby signing is a good idea, as is getting his hearing checked out. Most don't talk until around 2.

I can't recommend the LEARN TO TALK dvd by Oxbridge Baby highly enough, my late talking DS(just started single words and some small sentences/songs and has just turned 2) has benefited enormously from it, he gained massively in confidence vocally from imitating all the sounds/words on there, we got it about 3months ago and he can say everything on there now plus the signs! its about 30m long and is written by a speech therapist and is just fun for them, imitating animal noises and small words and so on - I say the colours when they appear and he can recognise and say all the colours himself now, its really been a great help. :)