2 year old not talking

[Lightbright]

Hello, just wondered if anyone had any advice/similar experiences to share.

My 2.1 year old boy isn’t talking yet. Most people try to reassure me and say it’ll come in time, but I suppose I want to make sure I’m doing everything I can to help him.

The health visitor referred him for a hearing test at his 9 month check as he wasn’t babbling yet, but that checked out fine.

He picked up some words when he was 1, although this was limited, and he later lost some words he had learned e.g cat and ‘what’s that?’

I called my HV when he was 22 months as he still only said a few words (although his understanding is good). She referred us to a play based little talkers group to see if this gave him a boost. We have his 2 year check soon and she said if he hadn’t made any progress we could look at speech therapy.

He still only has a handful of words that he can say reliably: car, daddy, oh (no!), yes, oh dear, red, yellow, blue, green, cheese, egg, up, where’s daddy? He can also make a few animal noises, and mimic the sound of me counting to 10 and saying the alphabet. He likes songs and tries to join in, with ‘ooh’ sounds and ‘roar’. He can do some actions.

He doesn’t generally try to copy words, instead he often makes a ‘guh’ sound when trying to vocalise something. So for example, if I ask him what he would like to watch on TV, he’ll reply with ‘guh!’ and hold up a toy to indicate what he wants, like a car. When he wants to say a word, he sometimes just ‘borrows’ one from one he can say to convey that meaning, e.g instead of ‘tractor’ he’ll say ‘daddy’ - I think because he thinks this is close enough in sound. Instead of ‘star’ he’ll say ‘ssss’ followed by ‘car’.

He points to things, shows me things, and leads me round by my hand.

I had concerns about autism but I’ve done the M Chat test and it came out with a low risk score.

So, I just wondered, does this sound within the realms of ‘normal’ or should I try to proactively do more with/for him?

Grateful for any advice.

@Lightbright that's great and I'm glad your DS is feeling better.

My DS has only had the private assessment and one hour session practicing sounds. He has been exhausted after both and needed a lunch time nap (he dropped his nap about 2.5 yrs)

He did however say Mummy this week. Which sounds so weird after all this time. I have always been Mum. Which is following how he usually speaks should of been just Mu, but I guess I was just an exception. Daddy is still Da. I must of said Mummy a million times. So I will keep on repeating

I finally got my NHS report it says DS has an expressive language delay, with issues with his speech sounds. He has normal for age understanding and attention. However we are now discharged from the service, so that was helpful

@snoringdoggo aww that’s great that you got called mummy’ I bet you wanted to cry! I’m waiting to hear my boy say this. The annoying thing is that he says ‘daddy’ beautifully, and repeats it often. I sometimes get called daddy but usually it’s just a grunt sound. He knows I’m called mummy, but he really doesn’t want to say it! 😭

Sounds like the second session went well - it must’ve been all going in if he was so tired out afterwards!

Gah, that’s frustrating that he’s been discharged from the NHS service....fingers crossed you start to see quick progress with your private sessions.

We've just been given a place on a 8 week course to help with talking. So we will start after Easter. I've been told that unfortunately it's not run by a speech therapist but lead by a social worker / family support person instead. It's is play based.

Of course I am glad of any help . So we have to try. @Lightbright have you found your talking course of benefit for your DS? How many weeks is your course?

I've also just been to a one off workshop this was run by a speech therapist- hurrah. It was about helping your child to speak.

The workshop I attended without DS was simple and basic, but helpful to hear the advice given on here and other threads first hand. My main takeaway was to repeat key words often ( that you want them to learn to say) And whilst they might understand "Go into the kitchen and put this in the bin" that it's hard for them to learn to copy words from long sentences. So "Go bin" would be better or just "bin" with a gesture. I need to keep reminding myself of this. Have a good weekend.

Hi @snoringdoggo - glad to hear things are moving along in terms of appointments and sessions for your boy.

The play based session sounds similar to the one we attended. The format of ours was loosely: introductions - song - introducing a session theme, and a weekly strategy for the parents - free play - regroup.

The sessions ran for 6 weeks (we started one which was later cancelled, and then started a new session). Like yours, the session’s not run by SLT specialists but by early years workers (they explained that when there was more funding for Sure Start centres, they were wholly employed by the council. With the cuts in funding, their roles changed slightly and they now work partly for the council, partly for the NHS to deliver health visitor type activity - so the Little Talkers group is part of that kind of work).

Anyway, I digress. In all honesty, when I first attended the session, I felt disappointed as I was hoping for more direct speech therapy strategies. I have to admit I also felt slightly defensive about my parenting (I find that this process can make me feel like I’m not doing the ‘right’ things).

Anyway, I continued with the sessions, and actually we ended up enjoying it. There was a lot of drop-off in attendance after the first session, but I found it got better from there, because you are in a group of parents who want to be there, and you get to know the other children’s personalities etc.

I found it beneficial in two main ways. Firstly, it worked on my boy’s focusing abilities and attention (he has never generally enjoyed structured group play sessions). By the final session he was comfortable and familiar with the format and he followed most instructions (this is something he can struggle with).

Secondly, I found that it helped to reflect on me as a parent and I suppose be more mindful and present with my son, especially in terms of play (it doesn’t come naturally to me). But following the sessions we got some new toys that he particularly engaged with, and I make more of an effort to sit and play, and try to follow his lead.

Since then, I think he’s realised that we want him to talk and he’s started labelling things. The other day as soon as he woke up, he started pointing to things and trying to name them, bless him! And when we went to visit his auntie and uncle, he greeted them by pointing to body parts and naming them. He’s trying harder to communicate his needs but I’m still often struggling to understand him.

So I don’t know if this is happening because he’s hitting that stage in his development anyway, or partly because of the activities we attended, but it probably is contributing.

Sorry, that’s a very long-winded reply but I figure as a mum in the same boat as me, you don’t mind the details (I struggle to be concise!)