My 2yr4month old won't say anything except "Mum"

[MummyBurrows]

Im now worried about my daughter,shes 2years 4months old and completely refuses to talk,she wont even try,all she ever says is "MumMum" over and over again and the rest is all complete jibberish. Ive tried reading her stories but shes not remotely interested and prefers to flick through the pages constantly looking at the pictures before i can even manage to say more than a few words on the page,i also spend quite a bit of time everyday repeating words to her with her sitting on my lap facing me in the hope she might repeat one of them but she just stares at me like im from another planet! She also,for at least 8months,has what i call a "little friend",it is essentially a imaginary friend or possibly some sort of ghost but to Chloe (my daughter) it is very much real,she babbles away to it "follows" it round the room with her eyes and giggles at it a lot,it tends to "appear" sometime late afternoon/early evening and in the early hours of the morning pretty much every night (it actually seems to wake her up!).

Is/was anyone elses child like this and what do you suggest i try to do in order to get her talking and is the "little friend" thing normal? Please help me,any advice will be very much appreciated :)

Get her hearing tested. Lack of speech and poor attention are classic indicators of a hearing problem. It's probably something simple like glue ear (about 20% of children have it) that can be fixed with grommits.

DS has just had his grommits done and he's finally talking. He's 3 in March and started speech and language therapy (SALT) in September. That has made a huge difference to his attention even before the surgery.

A trip to the GP is the first step regardless of whether she has a hearing problem or not and refer her for SALT treatment now just in case. The waiting lists are ridiculous.

Also look up the charity i-can.

Oh she sounds so lovely

I'd agree with you that it's unusual not to be talking more at her age. Has her hearing been checked? If not i would get onto that via the GP. Also I would get on the speech therapy list - you don't have to go through the GP though sometimes it's easier to get the contact details from them! There may be a speech therapy drop in at a children's centre or similar near you? They should be able to give you some advice.

Does the Mummum seem to relate to particular people or things (like you!) or is it a general word that stands for lots of things? I'm asking because she's more likely to pick up words that relate to what she's looking at or focusing on at the time. So if she says 'Mummum' while looking at you, you could add one word, like 'Mum reading' 'Mum cooking' 'Mum here'. Likewise, when she's flicking through the pages, describe what's she's doing - 'Page up, Page down, Page up, down, up, down, Book finished. Chloe finished. Chloe down. Mum up. Another book. Mum down. Chloe up. Book open.' etc etc!

Does she play with toys at all? Again, sit with her and describe what she's doing in the same way; then try copying what she's doing and describing what you are doing using similar words. See how she reacts. If her focus changes, keep describing what she is looking at/doing. TBH I'm sure you ARE doing this sort of thing - HTH.

google Ican or Talking point for more ideas.

Her hearing is fine as she will listen to me and do what shes told (most of the time) and does pay attention /concentrate on things,like a programme or disney film she likes on tv and playing with her toys with me and on her own,things like that.She just refuses to talk,when she was a year old her speech was doing ok and she was saying quite a few,albeit standard,words but then all of a sudden around 18months or there abouts she just stopped and now only says mum,mummy and dad on the odd occasion. Just got no idea why she stopped talking and now wont even try,she moves her mouth like she wants to copy what im saying but the sound and word just doesnt come out :s will deff get her to a dr just wondered if there was any advice from anyone i could try beforehand because of the waiting lists :)

Do go along to a speech therapy drop-in. whereabouts are you? They are usually at children's centres.

worth checking hearing anyway, I'm sure the GP will get onto that for you.

That sounds even more like glue ear, It's when the middle ear gets full of gunk after an infection. Imagine having your head under water. You can hear but it's not clear.

She sounds just like ds. Normal until 18 months, then stopped and lost words. He could also hear (but not properly as described) and understand and would watch tv but talking, books and other tasks requiring listening and attention he couldn't do.

DS? sorry im new on here lol. Will get her hearing checked again incase it is glue ear.Thanks :)

Anyone had any experice with a child having an imanginary type friend? It doesnt bother me too much as i see it as her just using her imagination and entertaining herself but her dad is worried/scared about it and it freaks him out when she starts "talking" to it at 3am :s

I'd forgotten but until the SALT assessed ds I thought his understanding was excellent. It wasn't.

We spent the first few weeks doing things like getting ds to build a tower with someone else and other taking turn games. He would get frustrated because it was hard being a participant when he'd controlled his world so much before. He had simple commands like wait, more, go, build, my turn, Jenny's turn, mummy's turn, DS's turn, do good listening, do good waiting and we signed as well as talking. In addition lots of positive praise to reinforce the instruction: good waiting, good talking, good listening, well done ds!

It was hard at first and took a lot of patience and resolve on my part as well as ds's. We also used to play games finding "the same" where ds had to match cards or objects to pictures or sounds.

We did other stuff but those were especially effective in the early days,

ds = dear son. There's an acronym list at the top of the thread

Don't have any advice but just happened on your thread and wanted to respond to your 'DS' question.

Isla is talking about her son; people posting on here generally refer to sons as 'ds', daughters as 'dd', husbands as 'dh' and so on. The 'd' stands for darling or dear, and is just a way of making the abbreviation longer than a single letter, I guess so that it isn't mistaken for a typo.

I hope you get the answers you need re: your 'dd' :) very soon. I agree with joan, she sounds like a lovely happy child.

oops sorry, x-post.

:)

Thank you,i guessed that was what DS stood for but thought best to check.

Chloe is a very lovely,happy child and has an irresistable cheeky little grin which means she gets away with murder lol,far too pretty for her own good in my opinion but im sure we all think that about our kids! Shes generally been rather advanced all though her life except with talking.i spoke to my friend about when her son (just turned 3) started talking/saying more than justa couple of words and she said he was around 2 and a half before his speech really came on so in a way it put my mind at rest a bit until i started reading Toddlers-The Mumsnet Guide at the weekend and every toddler,some younger than Chloe,seemed to be talking in proper sentances or at least it came across that every kid Chloes age should be talking properly or at least well enough to be able to understand what theyre saying :S

I don't think the imaginary friend is a bad thing, and anyway you'd have trouble stopping it! It's really common.

If she is 'talking' to the imaginary friend, it might be good to talk to it as well. At least say hello and goodbye X. Maybe suggest some names, she might be motivated to tell you what its name is! If you have a tea-party, you could set a place for X. And you could tell it off for waking her up

Ive tried talking to it but dont really want to encourage her to be up at in the middle of the night.have also tried talking to it when it appears during thet day but i just get completely ignored by Chloe lol. Have told her little friend off serveral times at night aswel as telling Chloe that its sleepy time,not play time and she can play with her friend in the morning but apparently that just seems to make her and her little friend stay up giggling and talking even longer.

Its a very strange situation,in Chloes mind it seems that she can really "see" this thing and the only time it gets to me is when i watch her eyes "follow" it around a room.its climbed up my curtains,walked along the curtain pole,jumped down and then "run" under Chloes highchair back and forth several times putting Chloe in absolute hysterical fit of giggles! I "know" its done it because Chloes "seen" it and ive watched her head and eye movements "following" her invisible friend as it did these things,all in the space of 5mins and she never takes her eyes off it.it actually freaks me out at times like that and also to me suggests its probably an animal of some description rather than a child that shes seeing but still a bit weird,strange and at times,disturbing when it makes Chloe go from a fit of giggles to crying her eyes out all of a sudden in the middle of the night!

It sounds a slightly freaky experience, that's for sure. I still don't think it's something to be worried about in itself. Hope the doctor and speech therapist are helpful.

My younger brother had two imaginary friends. They arrived on the scene when he was a toddler and eventually disappeared around 6.

It was very funny to start with and then got annoying. Especially when he used to say 'Imaginary friend says I don't need to eat my lunch.'

It is very common - don't worry!

How much tv is she watching? Is it on as background noise a lot? If it is often on, perhaps try turning it off completely for a few weeks and see how you go? Language development can be delayed by 'passive' listening. Activities that require some interaction from her, like building towers as suggested above, will help build her vocab (provided her hearing is fine).

I'd get a speech and language assessment, and if you can a paed referral. My son (now 3.5) was very similar, had glue ear, also has social / communication difficulties. It's been a long journey starting almost exactly a year ago, and his speech has come on no end (with a lot of speech and language therapy). He is still behind, but language is catching up. The main issue is the social stuff (which we've been told are 'traits of autism, but he's not on the spectrum'). I'm so glad we insisted on the paed referrals as doing something as early as possible makes all the difference. The chances are you're mind will be put at rest and it's nothing serious, but it's better to get on with things if you're one of the few where there is a difficulty of some sort. Good luck.

what cjn27b said. get a referral for SALT and also paediatrician. it reminds me very much of my DD who recently got a diagnosis of autism.

have you talked to GP or HV yet? did you have a 2 year check up with the HV? did they say anything?

how is your DD's understanding? can she follow instructions? how does she communicate with you? does she point at things she wants etc?

I agree - get a paed asssessment as soon as you can. I realise people who offer re assurance that it's all normal and common etc mean well but there is enough in what you say to suggest an assessment is needed and if all is well, what will you have lost ?

It does remind me of our experiences with ds at that age (but your experience may turn out to be very different). We also looked for more normal rationalisations of odd behaviour such as babbling and giggling to himself whilst having no normal social interaction and it took a long long time to accept that help was needed.