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Behaviour/development

Talk to others about child development and behaviour stages here. You can find more information on our development calendar.

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Original poster

2yrs old, speech mostly vowel sounds,is it because of the dummy?

40 replies

unpaidcleaner · 20/08/2007 20:39

Saw a friend and her baby at weekend, havent seen them for about 6months.Baby still very much a baby, very small, but I think what made her seem 'babyish' was that she has a dummy in nearly all the time, and when she does speak it's mostly vowel sounds, not proper words. I'm sure it's the dummy - wouldn't dream of saying anything to my friend but I was a bit shocked. I've heard people say dummies impede speech but I've never had any experience of it before.

OP posts:

UCM · 20/08/2007 20:42

It will clear up when she gets to nursery.

CristinaTheAstonishing · 20/08/2007 20:42

It could be developmental, it could be the little one is deaf...

Original poster

unpaidcleaner · 20/08/2007 20:43

apparently she goes to nursery 3 afternoons a week, and has done since christmas...

OP posts:

Original poster

unpaidcleaner · 20/08/2007 20:44

deaf? never thought about that. you've got me worried about the poor little mite now

OP posts:

Hulababy · 20/08/2007 20:44

Two year old is still very young to have clear speech. It varies so much at this age. Some two year olds can hold full conversions anmnd are clear for all to understand. Others are still limited in vocab and clarity, still using 2/3 word sentences, etc.

Also some two year olds are more "babyish" than others. Again all development at this stage can vary so widely. At two they are still babies really anyway, no matter how grown up they sometimes seem to us as a parent.

To blame the dummy at this stage would be very difficult. Also a tad judgemental I think.

divastrop · 20/08/2007 20:44

some children speak earlier than others,and sometimes speech delay can be caused by things such as hearing loss.i have never heard of dummies causing speech delay myself.my dd1 had one in her mouth permanently from 18 months to 2.10 years and never had any trouble speaking.

mamazon · 20/08/2007 20:45

my DD never had a dummy at all and didnt start speaking until around her second birthday, but when she started she seemed to really take off....we now can't shut her up lol

Original poster

unpaidcleaner · 20/08/2007 20:46

thanks hulababy - I was a bit taken aback but guess it's wrong to compare kids of similar age, everyone's different and so on...

OP posts:

CountTo10 · 20/08/2007 20:46

Some kids are just late talkers. i didn't talk properly until I was 3 and even then it was my own language, doctors tried to do the whole speech therapy thing but then I just spoke myself...when I wanted to. Kids just devleop at different rate. My friends ds has been slow to start at speaking and never had a dummy. Everytime I see him he says more and more. It's a confidence thing with him. 2 is still pretty early and a dummy is not necessarily the problem. A health visitor might recommend hearing tests before any speech therapy.

divastrop · 20/08/2007 20:49

yes,alot of children start speaking suddenly!my 20 month old dd has,after being at the same stage of speech for about 6 months,suddenly started coming out with about 5 new words a day and saying 3 word sentences.

my ds2 had speech problems caused by hearing loss(he had glue ear).he's fine since he had grommets fitted.

beautifulgirls · 20/08/2007 21:29

The most important thing I think is if the child can make the other usual sounds at this age, even if the words are not there. My DD#1 has a speech delay, and the first thing that alerted me was a lack of different sounds in her babbling. Never said ma ma ma, never said a "b" sounds or "p" but replaces all these for other sounds when she tried to speak - very very few words for her age when finally someone took me seriously. It turns out with her she had hearing issues due to glue ear and she had grommets put in 3 months ago now. Her speech is taking off at last but she needs a lot of therapy to unlearn all the wrong sounds she uses now and make her use her mouth properly.

It is hard to approach your friend without potentially causing upset, but I would be inclined to do so and suggest she get a full hearing assessment done and speech assessment too. If she has to rely on the nhs she could be a long time before anything gets done - we are a year on since we first got a referral and DD is just getting her first nhs speech therapy now, and we decided to go private for the grommets in the end or we would still be waiting for a 3rd hearing test yet.... She is also doing private speech therapy as we know her problem needs more input than we can get right now on the nhs.

Miaou · 20/08/2007 21:34

I once worked in a pre-school nursery where I had a little boy who did this, but he never had a dummy so I don't think that was the cause. Interestingly I discovered that he was able to say the other sounds, just didn't! Unfortunately his parents thought his speech was "cute" and were very resistant to doing anything about it despite the fact that he at least needed assessing for speech therapy. He was the middle of three boys who all had speech problems and from what I gather they all still do .

Anyway I digress - point I was making is it's not necessarily the dummy that is causing it (never say in a sentence what you can waffle into a paragraph, Miaou )

LadyOfTheFlowers · 20/08/2007 21:43

ds1 is 2 and says the following:

drink - 'inky'
milk - 'mowk'
bottle - 'bot-bot'
dirty - 'dutty'
tractor - 'chackter'
truck - 'tuck'

thats about it really, except for the usual mummy, bubba, dada.

he understands a lot more than he can say (plus he can fetch and carry! ) so i amnot too worried, although dh worries a bit and my mother comments on his 'lack of vocab'.

he still uses a bottle a lot.

KTNoo · 20/08/2007 23:44

Opinion from a SALT, for what it's worth...

Constant use of dummy can definitely hinder speech development. The child cannot make the full range of sounds with dummy in mouth - a common error is to use the back of the mouth instead of the front of the tongue, i.e. "guck" for "duck". This is because the child is trying to talk with the dummy in and the dummy is where the tongue should be going.

In my experience children who have a dummy most of the time talk less. I know this is controversial. Although thumb-sucking gets bad publicity as regards teeth, children usually take it out to talk.

This is not to say all children who use a dummy all the time will have speech difficulties.

My dd (18 months) uses a dummy for sleeping. I see how it can be really useful to give it to her during the day when she's cranky but I only let her have it in the cot.

Unpaidcleaner - I don't think you can say anything to your friend unless she asks for your advice. It's her choice. And at 2 you would expect the range of sounds to still be limited. It doesn't mean there's a problem, it's just something to be aware of.

boo64 · 21/08/2007 14:23

How limited?

NomDePlumeIsAShoeWhore · 21/08/2007 14:26

DD had a dummy until she was almost 4 (I know, I know) and her speech has always been excellent. In fact at her 2yr check with the HV, her speech/vocabulary was estimated to be on a par with a child of 5yrs old.

A dummy does not always mean hindered speech/language development.

JARM · 21/08/2007 14:30

DD2 is 2 in october, and has a dummy for sleeps.

She only says mum-mum, dada, boo - and not a lot else.

im not worried just yet, think its more laziness on her part because DD1 talks for her!

A little judgemental me thinks, i would be quite upset if a friend was judging my daughter for lack of speach at 2yrs old

bozza · 21/08/2007 14:31

You can't really say anything about this. And it may or not be the dummy. My friend's DD had a dummy until she was 3 1/2 and her teeth have grown with a circle shaped gap in the middle of them. Obviously this affects her speech.

lucyellensmum · 21/08/2007 14:54

my dd is two she has never had a dummy, but has speech delay. I do think that there may be some mild delay associated with dummies but to be honest i am not sure if it is significant or not. There could be some developmental issues though. The OP does seem a little judgemental, does she have her own DCs that she is comparing with. My advice would be that if this is a close friend, mention the speech delay TACTFULLY, but otherwise do not say anything. I would be really hurt and upset if other people mentioned DDs speech delay as it would bring it home to me that it was obvious. So if the friendship is anything other than a really close one, respect the fact that the babies parents will be doing what is best for her and probably have it covered.

boo64 · 21/08/2007 15:52

Agree with others - IF you do say something you are going to have to be very very careful and tactful - but I'm sure that they will have noticed that her speech is not great.

Could be the dummy but as others have said, loads of children who don't have dummies have speech delays.

I'd leave them to work it out themselves personally.

Tutter · 21/08/2007 15:55

would suggest backing off

they do things at their own pace

ds1 is 2.3 and says feck all - yes, no, dat, and eeeeeze (please)

CoteDAzur · 21/08/2007 18:33

I would be worried only because you say she says "mostly vowel sounds". Absence of clear consonants, even if wrong at times, would suggest that there could be something wrong with her hearing. If vowels is all she hears, that will be all she says.

DD is 2 years old and has less than ten words (she is learning three languages at the same time). When I spoke about this with her peadiatrician, I was told that as long as she says one word well, whatever it is, that means there is no hearing problem.

Does she says one word clearly? Even "daddy" or "mommy"?

If not, I would give a heads up to the mother. I know why you would try to avoid this, but if this is a good friend, maybe you can talk about it to her mother or other friends and bring the subject up in a conversation when all together.

KTNoo · 21/08/2007 22:13

Boo64 - there's a very wide range of normal.

But as general rule - don't worry TOO much about sounds and pronunciation at 2. You're looking for development of vocabulary and understanding, progression from single words to little sentences. I would say it's worth keeping an eye on a child with very few consonants once they get nearer 3. But even then they may not need any direct intervention - it depends on many things. However if a parent is concerned then that's always a valid reason to assess a child imo.

KTNoo · 21/08/2007 22:14

Should also have said, you do need to rule out obvious causes of speech sound errors such as hearing loss.

TotalChaos · 21/08/2007 22:17

hmmm. if she doesn't raise the issue, then you really oughn't - but if she does raise the issue,I would suggest that she gets her child referred NOW for speech therapy, as the waiting list could be a year. and it's better for the child to be so much better six months down the line that the appointment is cancelled, rather than to have a 3 year old who is very behind and then has to wait a furthre year for speech therapy.

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