Speaking - is it normal for DD to understand EVERYTHING but resort to signing to speak?

[legallyblond]

I have no idea as my mother assures me I was talking in full sentances at 11 months (she's right - videos to prove it!) and my sister was talking properly by 15 months.

DD is 15 months. She always used to babble a lot and at about 10 months started saying mama, dada, hello etc. At her 8 month (I think?!) review HV, who knows DD well, said to expect her to be talking fluently by 2.

Anyway, I am sure all is fine but.... pfb!!!

For a few months rom about 9 months on the babbling just dried up. Is this becasue she was learning to crawl then walk perhps?

DD understands absolutely everything, including complex instructions and connections - for instance, she'll understand "why don't you go and pick up your beaker then choose a book, bring it to me and we'll read it" or [to DH] "have you seen my phone" - to which DD mimics talking to someone on the phone, says "grandma" and woofs (her grandmother has a dog!)...

I guess I thought she would be saying more than 5 or so words at this stage.... instead, even though we've never done baby signing etc, she will sign rather than trying to say anything. So for instance, we know she fancies a snack if she points to the kitchen and then her mouth...

Is this normal?

[and yes - she's my first ... so please be gentle!]

I think your HV was spot on when she said to expect her to be talking fluently by 2. So she still has 9 months to go. In the meantime, she will definitely be understanding more than she will say. I think the baby babbling tends to lessen as they start to try to articulate proper words. New words tend to come gradually at first, then the vocabulary increases more quickly at around 21 months.

Regarding the signing, a friend's DD used to gesticulate wildly using her own sign language even at around the age of 2. It was just something she chose to do rather than talking. She was a perfectly normal little girl who started to talk more when she was good and ready.

I also think you must have been an infant prodigy if you were talking in sentences at 11 months.

Define sentences? I would be concerned about a child talking in adult-like sentences at 11 months, it's often a sign of developmental difficulty - not something to aim for!

At 15 months, the developmental norm is a handful of developing words. That's all. As for "fluent speech" at 2, my ds is pretty average at 2;1 and his "sentences" sound like this:

"My do it!"
"Me bit ginger[ale] Thomas cup!"
"Mummy peeling Joe's orange"
"Monkey climbing tree"
"Wherey Horsey? There is!"
"No way Mummy, mummy trouble, mummy going corner!"
"Baby Jesus mummy tummy?" (confused by too much talk about babies over Christmas?"

I am a Speech Therapist, and believe me, this is well within the average range.

DD understands absolutely everything, including complex instructions and connections - for instance, she'll understand "why don't you go and pick up your beaker then choose a book, bring it to me and we'll read it" or [to DH] "have you seen my phone" - to which DD mimics talking to someone on the phone, says "grandma" and woofs (her grandmother has a dog!)...

Also... hate to break it to you, but this isn't evidence she understands everything. There is likely to be a lot of nonverbal cueing and routine/context enabling this.

To respond to the first instruction, she needs (at most) to understand "beaker" and "book". Bringing it to you and reading it is, well, routine. Ask yourself do you really say it all on one breath stream, with no gesture/stress/facial expression to support it? Similarly, to respond as she's doing to "have you seen my phone" she only needs to understand the word "phone".

It's all really normal, by the way!

Your dd sounds just like my ds! He only said mum, dada, grr for anything with teeth (lion, tiger, dinosaur etc) and ss for snake up until 20 months, but he seemed to understand most of what was asked of him and developed his own sign language. As a sahm to a pfb I was advised that we were not encouraging him to speak as we understood what he meant so there was no need for him to change the situation.

Now at 20 months he can say reindeer, mmm if he's peckish, gran, woof, miaow, quack, grandad and is really interested in trying out new words. His comprehension still amazes me and dh and I have to be very careful what we say around him as he's always listening in!

Sounds totally normal - most 15 month olds communicate through gestures and a few words/sounds. They also understand a lot more words than they can say.

Children can sign before they have the muscle control to speak. Why not take your DD to sing and sign classes so she can have more signs in her vocabulary and she can communicate this way. Signing does NOT delay speech, but reinforces communication. By the way, her current patterns sound total,y normal to me too, I am just a fan of giving kids a way to communicate their needs.

Awww, thanks all! I take it all on board! You know how it is, pfb....

I think I was just a bit of a freak to be talking at 11 months and not a fiar yardstick - but it was weird - it really was sentances, like on video, along the lines of "mummy, me hungry, you gimme milk? (bf... while yanking top, so rather when my mum wheels this one out!)"

duh - fair yardstick! I did do a degree in languages actually and now speak 4 pretty fluently (mother tounge, 2 for my degree and 1 learnt by living abroad), so maybe I am just a languages freak!

Yeah, we don't count those as sentences! So ds can say things like "No Mummy, Daddy do it! Pour juice, Brendan cup" and I would count those as 4 x 2 word phrases because of how they're said (not on one breath stream/ "do it" is a "holophrase" so counts as one word). However, today he said "Mummy's holding Brendan's hand" and I would rate this much higher, although even still I would withhold giving him full credit for it as I think the inclusion of the 's for Mummy's and possessive 's' are just learned.

We have pretty strict criteria, but you would still have been very advanced to be doing 2-3 word phrases at 11 months so well done to you. Very rare though, not at all a fair yardstick!

Thanks working! Your job must be sooo interesting!

What is it about parenting though that brings out the panic monster in a normally laid back person?! Thanks for explaining though that DD is normal and on track. No reasdon she wouldn't be I guess! I am coloured by my weird unusual speech development, clearly!

Hardly "well done" me though - just one of those random things, and I couldn't walk until I was 19 months, so clearly lazy slower in other things!

The normal range is very wide. I would have her ears checked if she used to babble and doesn't do it anymore - it could be a sign that she has glue ear, or liquid in the middle ear, or that her hearing was fine and has become affected.

Speaking at 11 month old is advanced, and not saying anything at 18 months old is a bit on the late side, but still normal. Are you concerned about anything else in her development? late at sitting, walking, does she dribble a lot? Does she have lots of colds and ear infections?

I worried myself so much with DS development, making comparisons to DDs at each stage (so bad, I know, but you can't help but spot the differences)
He was slower with his speech but my goodness did he have a signing vocabulary. I wrote it down once and, I think, at 18 months or so, he had about 25-30 signs but very few words.
So I knew he understood and I knew he could communicate. I figured the more signs he had the more he would understand when it came to talking.
I believe, I was right, with DS.
With his speech, as with his walking, he developed a little later than DD but when he did, boyo, did he!

You are absolutely normal to be pfb about this but then I was psb with DS in comparison to DD. So..........I dunno, it is all normal because who is to say what normal is anyway
Hope that makes sense?

I think her hearing is ok as she seems to be able to hear us and non-verbally respond to us. She says "mama" "dada" "nana" and "grandma" all in context and then animal noises, like woofing, purring, mooing, baaing, hissing, "clip clopping" (for horses) and "tick tocking" for clocks.... As I said, I do wonder if that is not much at all for 15 months, but I think I should try and not worry! Plus I wonder if half the reason that she doesn't talk is that she has only ever been looked after by me or DH (she's never even been babysat ), and as we understand her funny signs etc, she has less need to talk than if she were with other carers... maybe?

Oh, actually, as I write I do think her hearing is fine as she [preens for a boast] can tell the difference between singing and piano playing on the radio (we always have radio 3 on!!) and either sings along ("laa laa laa" tunelessly) or mimcs playing the paino [shamelessly proud] depending on which it is!

She was on the late side for walking (and crawling/sitting I guess - 7 months until she could sit really securely, 10 months crawling and 14 months walking) but really not that late. Or is it? I know nothing!

I shall keep an eye though! Thanks all!

Oh, and no colds etc normally (never had an ear infection), although she has had a stinker for a couple of weeks now!

It all looks pretty normal to me, within the normal range. Dyspraxia symptoms can be spotted relatively early (5 years old maybe) But I would think that dyslexia is diagnosed a little bit later.

sorry whi did I just mention dyslexia and dyspraxia it's not even mentionned in the thread. I need a break!