Only saying parts of words

[Ixnayonthehombre]

My 21 month old is behind average with speech but I'm not too worried because his non verbal communication and understanding is good. What I have noticed is the few words he says tend to be just a single consonant sound. My mum seems to
think this could be a hearing issue, could she be right?

He says shhh for shoes and fish
'C' for cake
'T' for a sibling who's name begins with T.
He doesn't say anything else except mama and dada (D) and bye bye (ba-ba)

I think my others did this with the odd word but not all and had much more speech by now.

Is he a good eater? Eating exercises the tongue so good eaters tend to speak more clearly.

Your mum could be right but it could also be immaturity. Most HVs won't entertain a Speech Therapy referral until much older so it's one to keep an eye on. Most kids will get clearer with practice but glue ear and other issues could lead to delayed speech too.

Do you get a 2 year check? My kids are much older so no idea what the norm is now.

It’s certainly worth getting hearing checked, in many areas you can self refer for this. Once he’s 2 if things haven’t improved, you can self refer for Speech & Language Therapy (SLT). There’s a progress checker which has been produced by Talking Point which you and your DW may find helpful and it may also be worth doing the M-CHAT, just to rule that out too.

Sorry meant DM not DW

My DS is 20 months and I’ve been wondering about this too. He has about 25 words, but lots are names of people. However, I’ve noticed that when he’s trying to say common nouns (book, bag, milk etc) he often just says that start e.g.boo, ba, mil etc. I’ve also wondered if this was normal. I asked paediatric nurse and she said that it was typical, but I haven’t noticed any of the children doing it. Perhaps I don’t pay enough attention though. My DS had a full hearing test at 8 months and all was fine.

Thanks everyone. Will look up the talking point thing and maybe ring HV to check when/if the 2 year check is and if she knows about hearing tests.

Illvechurros, my dd definitely did it with some words, but was more like your son, i remember moo for more specifically. I wasn't bothered because she was also speaking in sentences and singing nursery rhymes, I guess I'm wondering about it this time because the sounds my son makes are quite clipped and not always the easiest part of a word. Why was it your son had a hearing test at 8 months and what did it entail? Was it similar to the newborn one?