Language worries - twins (2 years). After reassurance or advice

[lloydi]

I have twins - boy and girl - who will be 2 in 1 month's time. I am a little concerned that they are not speaking enough, based on other toddlers of similar age who seem to say more. However, I also know that twins supposedly speak later ... because they have their own way of communicating, but I'm not are I see much evidence of that :(

The girl seems quite switched on, and seems to know what's going on. She knows eyes, nose, shoes, milk, rabbit (her fave toy), no, daddy, mummy, dog (said as 'got') and can follow some basic commands, and there are quite a few more that I can't think of right now ... but basically she seems quite sharp. She talks scribble and gives all the facial expressions that suggest she knows what she's on about .... but we don't!

The boy says a lot less, though. Daddy, food (or 'mom' in their words, like lm-nom-nom), water is 'gur' (learnt because of the way nanny says 'Good, good, good' when they are drinking water) and 'go out'. And I can't think of much else ...

I should point out that my wife is British Born Chinese and speaks Chinese and English to them, me English and grandparents Chinese. So, twin-speak plus dual language = confusion?

I accept that things may be slower for them to learn, but how should I check whether this is just a natural delay that I don't need to worry about for now or an actual speech issue is being masked because we think 'ah, it is just cos they are twins' or 'they are hearing two languages'?

Should I go to the GP to ask for advice? Or should I just chill out and let them pick it up in good time? How do I benchmark what is right or wrong?

Any help appreciated :)

You can self refer to speech and language therapy if you are concerned, but they are still very young and you may want to post on the bilingual board for some advice first

I am a twin (2 girls) and I have boy / girl twins. My twins were premature although I personally don't think that had much to do with their speech, but we were under a paediatric consultant for 2 years following their discharge from hospital just to make sure they were OK.

At 2 years, they were in line with their peers apart from their speech which was said to be 3 months behind. I had exactly the same issues - girl would make lots of noises, seemed to know more words, boy was not as vocal.

It may depend where you are but we couldn't be referred or self refer for speech therapy until the age of 3. By that age, boy had more words although girl (despite directing questions directly at boy) would answer for him. I definitely think he was probably a little bit lazy and slightly behind his sister. He also had a little bit of a stutter at that point. My parents said it was exactly the same with my sister and I - she would do all the talking for me.

We did go to speech therapy for about 4 months shortly after their 3rd birthday with boy. The lady said it was quite common in twins for 1 of them to be slower than the other, and that in my boy's case, for their brain to know what they want to say but they're not physically able to vocalise it so quickly (i.e. their brain is working faster than their mouth, hence the stutter - instead of developing gradually. Because he was behind to start with, he'd made such massive progress in a short space of time that he was struggling to cope with it). The therapy sessions just involved half an hour of letting my boy talk as he wanted to, and coming home with a few exercises.

So point of all that is to say don't worry. With the added complication (which will no doubt pay dividends in the future) of being bi-lingual, its probably alot to process. I also think its fairly common in twins. Just keep an eye on it and if you do have any concerns, speak to your GP / HV about referral to speech therapy in a few months.

I knew identical boy twins who were being brought up bilingual (French/English). They got to 21 months and said not a word. The parents dropped the French at home and they started to speak very quickly.
They reintroduced the French at 2yo and they picked that up and were fluent in both languages fairly quickly.

I did also know when growing up identical boys (apparently they're typically the worst) who developped their own language. Full sentences etc, and refused to use anything else. They had to separate them for a few weeks to get them speaking English. They were very determined little chaps though.

I have identical girls that are 2.4. They had hardly any words at their second birthday but then their language literally exploded over about a week. Now, they seem to know everything.