How does your nearly 3 year old talk?

[Hiddenbiscuits]

DD will be 3 in January. She has been referred to speech therapy as mainly uses single words or 2 word sentences. For example, if a lorry goes past she will say "big truck" and if i am brushing my teeth she will say "me teeth" but she doesn't talk about things that aren't immediately in front of her if that makes sense.

I know all children develop at different rates but i have nothing to compare to so just wanted an idea of what the average 2 year 10 month old child sounds like, thanks

My now 8 year old was the same (and was also referred) at that age. He had his own way of communicating but wouldn't talk apart from a few select single words.

Now though, I seriously can't get him to shut up and haven't been able to for YEARS!! Lol. Easier said than done, but try not to worry yet at this stage.

Does she understood what you are saying to her? I remember that being an important factor when we went to speech therapy (which he was discharged from after 1 session!).

My dd is 25 months and has been talking in sentences since the summer. She'll say things like 'i'm very excited', 'i want to go in garden', 'i need toilet', ' I don't like that one', 'i a little bit sick', 'i miss you teddy' (after a day at nursery' and my personal favourite 'mummy, I a wiggly worm' whilst wiggling on the floor (peppa pig has a lot to answer for). I wouldn't worry though, kids do things at completely different rates. My dd has not attempted to climb anything, can't jump, hasn't got many of her teeth etc she's just a chatterbox by nature.

Thanks its good to hear some different perspectives. She understands what i say so not too worried, was just interested in how much of a delay there actually is, if at all

The therapist we saw came to the conclusion that it was a confidence thing with DS. He knew and understood things, but he just didn't have the confidence to say the words. It wasn't long after he turned 3 when he seemed to come out of it and just came out with a load of words out the blue!

My DS is nearly 2 and a half and I'd say his speech patterns are similar to an adult' s, but with lots of grammatical 'errors' and a few mispronunciations of longer words. 2 year olds do seem to have massive leaps in speech development at different times. I've been amazed how often we don't see a child for a few weeks and suddenly their speech has come on massively.

My dd is 3 in March and she is similar to yours, she can follow single part instructions but not two part and if she can get away with only using one word she will.
We've seen a therapist a couple of times privately after being told a nhs referral would take till she is 3 to come through. We've been advised to add a word to whatever she says and repeat it back to her so she then repeats it to us. So if she says drink you say more drink, she starts saying more drink you say more drink please. That kind of thing, also giving options to everything where possible, drink is answered with water or juice using visual aids where possible. I know in our case was guilty of letting her get away with one word requests a lot of the time for speed and ease, so now having to make a real effort not to.
Also do constructive make believe play, so host a teddy bears tea party with them and talk about what you are doing when you give teddy a drink/ food and get them to talk about what the teddies are doing and ask child to give teddy a drink etc.
we've seen an improvement in dd speech since we've been doing this though two part instructions still aren't followed 100% of the time.

Hello OP :) Just a suggestion, but something I've done with my DS (3.5 now) which helped loads with his speech, and he loves, is at bedtime we read one story, then we have what we call a 'talking story'.

What this means is I start by saying 'once upon a time there was a little boy called...' and he says his name. Then I say 'and in the morning he got up with his mummy and he...' and he says 'had breakfast'. (Now he says 'he had toast for breakfast' etc) 'then he went to...' etc etc. We go through his whole day, with me giving prompts to say what he did at different times. We talk about everything, the colour of his shoes, the things he ate, the people he saw and the places we went.

It's given him so much confidence to name things, and also to remember things. At first he needed lots of prompts because he didn't know or didn't remember, so I gave him words for playgroup, nursery, park etc. I also use it as a time of day to tell him when he's done something great like painted a lovely picture or been really kind to his baby brother.

We started doing this about 2.5 years old by accident really, and in the last month or so he had a huge leap and started giving imaginary answers. I am amazed to see the change in him! For example, he's made up a totally different child to tell a story about, and tells me made up things they did that day - last night it was a little boy called Finlay who put on magic welly boots and flew away with a fairy when his mummy wasn't looking at the park. It's become such a lovely thing for us to do!

I think more than anything it has just been great to dedicate 10 minutes a day to talking really deliberately with him, where his input is the focus of the conversation. It takes no time at all really but has worked wonders with his speech and confidence.

My DS has always had excellent understanding (demonstrated by the fact we can generally avoid tantrums with him by explaining/reasoning with him) but only spoke a handful of words at 2, and for most of his second year would speak in 1 or 2 word sentences (nouns/adjectives, no verbs).

At about 2.7 he started adding pronouns and a few common verbs (eg my want, my going), but like your DD was mainly talking about things in front of him - with the exception of when he was acting out stories from books. He would never tell us what he'd done at nursery.

Then at 2.10 there was a huge quantum leap and he started using much more complex sentence structures, plus play in wholly new imaginative ways, and show an understanding of past and future. At just turned 3 he is still not the chattiest of his peers but he will come out unprompted with descriptions of things he did during his day, talk about dreams he had, ask (constantly) about Christmas (as he knows presents are involved).

I'd go with your instincts as to whether you think there is a problem or not. Nursery were always on at us because he spoke less there than at home but I always felt there wasn't based on his understanding levels, his love of books, and that he has always been the type to want to watch and observe rather than leap straight in.

Thanks everyone some good suggestions the gist i am getting is that if they understand what they are hearing the speech tends to get there on its own eventually?

As my MIL always says Einstein didn't speak till he was eight....

DS (2.8) speaks like a foreign national trying to speak English at an intermediate level. The longest sentence he says are ten words. You can have a conversation with him, and he can be reasoned with. He can also negotiate, which is tiresome.

Nursery have pointed out to me that he is a good speaker and the children at nursery range between less than your DD's, OP, and almost up to DS'. All of them seem developmentally 'normal' to me when not speaking however - I see them daily and it doesn't seem to affect their socialization, art work, etc.

I don't say this to brag - his hand-eye coordination is up there with a slug's!

That made me giggle thinking of a tiny foreign national disguise as a toddler! I forgot to say a lot of her words are not clear either or sometimes incomplete eg window is dow, bath is ba etc. i think thats probably what the nursery is more concerned about rather than the lack of sentences?

my DD has just last week turned 3 - up until about 3-4 months we had not one single word from her. i was back and fore to the HV all the sodding time about it. anyway she done an assessment, and apart from her speech she was about 9-12 months ahead of where she should be and was spot on where her speech was concerned a speech therapist was consulted and it was decided no intervention was needed!!

anyway, one day she just started saying mummy/daddy, then the following day more words followed and now she is talking non-stop. we still have a LOT of words where we're playing guessing games, and she has only now started to put 3-4 words together. she will still use "baby noises" to get what she wants which we ignore completely.

TBH i am just so goddam chuffed she is actually chuffed i don't care that she is behind her peers - her understanding is absolutely amazing and apparently DD is a "thinker" and wants to get things right before she does it....not so sure myself but i'll go along with it. it doesn't seem to be hindering in any way with her little friends and she is very good at getting her point across.

in my eyes for her own personal development she has come on leaps and bounds and i am so proud of her - she may not be "up there" with her friends with regards to speech but she for her she has improved 95% and will continue to improve at her own pace.

i also second what a PP said -expand on what they say. when DD started saying "more" for more juice or whatever i would say ok you want more juice...or more biscuits. i would just add the appropriate one or two words extra and it really did help x

chuffed she is actually talking that should be...so chuffed i can't even talk lol