Speech in 3yo girl.

[Babieseverywhere]

Please could I have examples of what your child could/does say at three years old ?

I have been told my daughter is on the slow end of normal but friends have made a couple of comments recently that upset me.

So though I am sure my daughter is fine, I would like some reassurance.

at 3 it is a wide area and skills really do vary. Dd1 (ASD and speech delay) had about 200 words. used mainly single words and no phrases and was only able to follow. one step instructions. her speech and language difficulies at that stage were classed as 'severe' (and still are).

Dd2 (no SN) spoke in complex sentences, was able to follow detailed instructions, we had conversations.

what are your concerns? have you seen SALT? as a first step I would request a hearing test if there are concerns.

DD babbled with appropriate rhythm, we could tell she thought she was speaking in full correct sentences, but we struggled to understand most of it. Her sounds were lousy, sorted self out as soon as she did phonics at school.

My ds has just turned 3. His speech has come on massively just in the last couple of months. Just 2 months ago he was far less able to be understood than now so I guess they just develop at different rates. Now he does use quite complex sentences and lots of words but it is quite "mumbly" and sometimes other adults can't understand what he's saying.

DS is 3.1 and his speech has transformed in the past two months & it is now possible to have a conversation with him. He has just done a wee and, as he finished, said "now I wash hands" followed by "need soap" "rub, rub, rub" and "all done" then "someone play with me? I know, let's go upstairs and hide" all of which was comprehensible to me. The bits about hand washing would have been to a stranger as it was in context but I'm not sure the bit about going upstairs would have been. He just came out of his bedroom shrieking about the "tiger" and I was thinking we were about to do some tiger game he had made up but he was actually trying to tell me there was a spider! When I collected him from nursery one day last week, neither I nor his key worker had a clue what he was trying to tell me.
With his sister, I could have had long discussions about all sorts of things at this age. They all vary so much. We have had SALT input on DS at 2.1 and 2.7 and on both occasions have been told he is in the normal developmental range, just at the lower end

She failed her two year check. Her hearing was tested and she has good hearing.
Comm paed referred her to SALT as a precaution, who rejected referral due to age.
I asked for discharge as I had no concerns...she is just very like her brother. She will catch up.

Most speech is one or two words usually not understandable.

Some clear phrases included mummy thankyou and daddy home.

She probably knows 30 words maybe more.

Most days she understands everything, other days she ignores me and screams in frustration.

But overall happy child :)

Sorry, pressed send too soon. We were actually told he was towards the lower end of the range & not to worry.

Exactly..someone has to be at the bottom end.

Ds1failed the 2 year check for speach as well.

About 6 months later, he started spouting full sentences.
DS2 passed his 2 YR check.

DS1 is much easier to understand. OK, he is older, but there was never a problem understanding him when he bothered to talk. DS2 can be very hard to understand, now at 4 when it's out of context. Tho his big brother can often understand.

Speach at 2 isn't always a predictor of future speack, tho it can be a useful point to pick up problems for some kids.

My child was v similar to chocs, had a few years of salt, and was fortunate enough to have a big language leap.at five. You don't mention whether you are concerned about your dds understanding but tbh I would be looking to get on salt waiting list in case things don't improve over next year, you can always take her off easily enough.

OP, I would rather push for SALT rather than hoping she will catch up. some do, but some don't and just because her brother her caught up it doesn't mean she will without any input. you are under the paed already so I suppose there is more going on?

Mine both spoke normally and fluently at 3. They were both early talkers with dd speaking in sentences on her first birthday and ds a bit later but certainly by 18 months.

My eldest niece has a very similar grasp of language at 3 as your dd does op. In her case it was part of a larger issue but what made the difference to her speech was timely intervention from the SALT. My brother and SIL were adamant there was no problem at all and didn't want any interventions. It took the nursery raising the issue for them to see that things weren't quite right.

You say you're absolutely sure things are fine and you've done this before so know how speech can be at this age. However, you've started a thread about it which suggests maybe there's a small part of you that might be concerned?

It was a couple of comments from friends which worried me...not my daughter.

We are discharged from Comm Paed and I am happy with that.

She is picking up new words all the time, just a matter of time until she is chatting away and I will pray for silence, lol

I'm a Speech Therapist. I would be quite concerned about a 3 year old with only 30 words and who was screaming in frustration routinely in conversation. I'm working with three year olds with this sort of profile right now and their needs would all be classed as severe. Unfortunately it's really hard to tell without assessment whether your dd's needs are severe or not, or whether she is following after her brother. I would probably advise you not to rely on this as I have worked with families where children have had similar early language development but where one child has outgrown their difficulties and the other has not.

I also have a three year old (just three) who is playing out in the garden beside me now so to answer your question these are things he can say. I wouldn't count it as above average really, it is very similar to that of other children we know and what I was taught was typical of this age range:

I was thinking if I could get another ice cream
What was it sitting on your head Mummy?
Bad guys can't do something to the bees, silly, they gonna do a different thing instead like fly
I comed out of the garden Mummy cos I'm going to hide from John
I want to eat this one.
Is that big guy the Daddy snail?
You don't kick that silly you throw it
John snatched my skittle from me mummy he needta say sorry
I want it to be my turn again
I'm starting to win
I need to do it again
Is a blue whale bigger than that Daddy snail?

I might start writing down her words....see how many she has now.

My child is 2.5, so not far of 3. He has recently started using past tense correctly so "I jumped on the sofa and then I fell and banged my head" he mispronounces a few words, for example delicious comes out as ah-lish-us. He's started using different describing words, the sea has been described as really/terribly we have read the gruffalo too many times /very/too-cold. He constantly asks questions "what's that boy doing?" "What's that?" "What are we doing now?" "Where is daddy?" He talks to himself when playing with his toys, simple narration as to what is happening. He can tell you what word begins with a,b,c,d (and so on) but he only recognises a couple of letters. He's bilingual and his strongest language (French) is at the moment quite far ahead of English, he puts French grammar onto English words, but he knows the difference between French and English and if you say "how do you say that in English?" He usually knows.

I have been listening carefully and she seems to understand most of what we say to her. Sometimes she doesn't and she responds in a learnt way. i.e When I ask a question in the kitchen...she brings me milk from fridge regardless of what I asked for.

She has many 2 word phrases and can repeat 6/7 words crystal clear sentences, if someone else has just said them. i.e "Turn the tv around now please" Repeated after a sibling said the same thing.

So she has the ability to speak but chooses not too or maybe can't remember all the right words ?

I am glad that she makes sounds/single words a lot now, whereas last year she would just look at us in silence.

I have recently met children who will be in her nursery class in September. The children's speech varied a great deal but I met one little boy who talked less than my daughter. So she is not the only child at the bottom of the speech curve and she certainly doesn't need a full verbal vocabulary to get her opinion across !

I think once she is in nursery with adults who don't understand her like we do, she will start speaking more and more...like her sibling did.

Hopefully I will post an update at Christmas telling you all, how chatty she is. ..fingers crossed

Well she sounds like she has a great many more than 30 words then. Usually children have about 50 before they start combining two words together. If she has a good number of 2 word phrases she does still have a significant language delay but it is less concerning than 30 single words. Ironically, the ability to repeat long "crystal clear" sentences is actually more worrying as this isn't something that someone who is communicating in two word phrases would usually be able to do. It can mean that a child is having difficulty understanding language and/or that his/her ability to get information from social interactions is different to other children of the same age. There is a lot of variation and change at this age, so time will tell.. but if you don't see a major increase in short sentences in the next six months, I would not delay any longer. I'd probably not delay as it is, but it's your choice of course.

Thanks for all the posts...I will watch how she gets on at nursery next year.

My DD2 turned 3 a couple of weeks ago and I have been concerned with her speech since she turned two. Have always felt she had an 'issue' with her speech, so we have been involved with our local Speech and Language programme for a while. She has had some support and we have done a group session based on It Takes Two to Talk, which was more aimed at providing parents with skills to encourage talking. However now she is three she will be reassessed and if she needs further help it will be one-on-one with a SALT.

Her speech has come on a lot in the last couple of months, she now regularly says 4/5 word sentences and has too many words to count, she also parrots phrases quite a lot too.

She knows the alphabet song, twinkle twinkle, row your boat, she knows her colours and shapes "that's a hexagon", and can count to ten.

Recently I have noticed she asks more questions "what's that?" "where did x person go?' and will volunteer more information "I like that one".

You can't really have a conversation with her yet though, maybe a very basic one, it can be hard to get her attention and get her to answer questions.

It is still very hard to understand her speaking and though she probably does meet the 'standard' for her age I think she will require further support and I am all for that, why let your kid struggle along when the support is there? Even if your daughter does get really chatty by Christmas it doesn't mean there might not still be an issue or a reason for the delay. I think 3 is old enough to be worried without being an seen as an overanxious parent.

I started to become concerned about my DD's speech when she was coming up for 3. Until then I didn't notice anything amiss but I'm an older, working mum with only one child and didn't have much opportunity to compare. when we did mix with other children of the same age I found the difference in language development quite startling.

She only started combining words at 27 months and coming up for 3 she was still pretty well incomprehensible - often also to me.

Throughout her 3rd year I continued to worry but no one at nursery commented and I suspect (her nursery was in French) her French was better.

She started reception at 3.11 in English school and the teacher also raised concerns about her speech. She is now 4.9 and has just finished her first school year and - wow - what a difference! Expresses herself clearly now.

So, in conclusion, I guess she too was at the slow end of normal, and that the bilingualism affected her language development (though something that gave me concern was that all her peers are also bilingual or even trilingual but spoke better than her).

Something that reassured me throughout was that her understanding was totally fine even if the language production lagged behind.

In hindsight it might have been good to have a little professional help or at least to have more actively modelled/corrected sounds.

Ds2 is 3 has ASD & a speech delay and has started putting his own three word sentences together. He still uses a lot of echolalia, that is those clear repeated phrases. Also understanding is assumed because he follows routine a lot.

But repeating of phrases like that while other speech is much further behind can possibly be autism. Also ds2 used to stare blankly at us a lot and scream. He's much better now he's closer to 4 than 3.

ASD was ruled out for my son, so it won't be that..as they are identical personality wise....I hope it is just a slow speech thing but time will tell.

With this, I just don't see why you wouldn't get a bit of professional help as early as possible if there might possibly be an issue.

If there is no issue, well, then a few wasted sessions isn't the end of the world. And if there is an issue early intervention can pay big dividends.

My youngest niece had reasonably unclear speech and by sister delayed getting any help because they could mainly understand her. One she started school it was v clear she was behind and adults not being able to understand really knocked her confidence. Much better now after some SALT intervention.