2 year old stopped talking and interacting

[Bertieboo1]

Our 2 year old son has always been slightly late to 'do things' compared to his little friends, however recently he has made massive steps forward physically.

He has always been quite shy and was never a fan of busy groups, though he is coping better. He also goes to nursery, 1 day a week at the moment.

His speech was progressing steadily up until this winter. We had a baby and he had a couple of ear infections - not sure if either of these are relevant. Since then, he has stopped talking to anyone. He will speak when he is singing or looking at books, eg naming what is on the page or picture, but will rarely respond to anyone - not when we say his name, ask him a question or generally talk to him. He has stopped even the basics like 'thank you' and counting to 10 which he was doing all the time.

We are really worried. We were referred for a hearing test at his 2 year check. Basically I need some advice from anyone who has been through this - is there anything we can do to help him? Do we need to chase this further if the hearing test comes back with no issues? Is speech therapy available at this age?

Is the hearing test far off? if not I would probably wait. but if it is still far away maybe push for a Salt and/or development paed referral. really, any regression should be investigated.

Salt may want to wait for a hearing test but they are also looking at communication in general and may be able to pick up if anything else is amiss. is he otherwise communicating well? any other developmental concerns?
If you are worried about ASD, then Google M-chat and see if it flags him up as high risk.

Personally, and with no wish to alarm you, I think you should go and talk to your GP. There are various reasons why a 24 month regression may occur and it's probably as well to get them all checked out (hearing is one of them).

In the meantime, the best you can do is to enjoy him and encourage all forms of communication. How does he communicate with you now? How does he tell you what he wants/needs/thinks?

also, hearing can be a red herring. My DC had glue ear and compromised hearing. her not talking was blamed on the glue ear. only once we were seen by audiology, then ENT and had grommets (almost a year later) and her speech did not come on did we have further investigations. I always wish we had been persistent in the first place rather than accepting the glue ear fob off.

Thanks for your replies - whatamess, (sorry don't know how to tag people properly) what sort of investigations did they do? Did they offer any treatment?

we were eventually seen by a developmental paed and had assessments for autism (got a diagnosis). you do not get any help for ASD on the NHS. DC has also severe speech delay and we had about a dozen sessions of Salt but that was it. we fund some stuff privatly now with DLA.