2.5 yo speech stress

[hollylouise1994]

Think I’m just looking for reassurance but my DC1 seems really behind with speech. Nursery seem very relaxed about it but I’m getting more and more stressed as time goes on and don’t know what to do.

It’s an effort to get him to use sentences, he makes a sound to ‘ask a question’ rather than just saying ‘what is this?’ And a lot of what he says is unclear even to us. For example the word ‘finished’ sounds like ‘doodoof’ and even when I say words he will repeat them in a way that sounds completely different.

Has anyone else had this? We talk to him constantly, narrate what we are doing, read books and have next to no ‘screen time’.
No dummy since he was a year old. I’m trying not to get stressed about it but it’s so hard. Is it possible things will just click or should I be worried?

I suggest going to see a professional in speech therapy. Definitely will make improvement and also have his ears/listening checked as this is connected to his brain function and might be slight delay/difficulty in processing.

My son is 3, most of what he says isn't particularly clear and the rest is just garbled noise. We've been trying to go through the whole process to ultimately, I guess, get some speech therapy. Covid has not helped at all.

At the beginning of the year I took him to a speech and language drop in run by the children's centre to have an assessment. They were then supposed to observe him at nursery but covid happened. I had another phone consultation recently and he's been referred for a hearing test (just to rule it out). Otherwise we're just on a waiting list.

If you are concerned I would check to see if your local children services are doing self referrals or some sort of consultations. I would look on their website and maybe your hospitals one too. You may need to speak to your GP about a hearing test. You may not think there is a problem with his hearing and there might not be, but it's just one of the things that they will check before doing anything else.

In the meantime, maybe check out YouTube for some speech therapy tips.

I hope that helps. I know how it feels to be worried about speech, I've been concerned about my son since he was about 9 months old as I wasn't convinced he was babbling enough.

Does he understand well? Does he say anything legible in full sentences? Mine is the same age and says plenty clearly in long sentences but a she often reverts back into babble mode at times and I have to tell her I can't understand. She still says some particular words really funny too. Like finished comes out 'oowished' and little soinds like 'oigle' and milk sounds like 'qualtz' I have no idea why she struggles with certain words because she can say other words like triangle quite well I think it's quite normal for speech to be quite immature at this age and I'm not personally planning on worrying too much til mine is 3 as she's clearly progressing very quickly so I think she'll do ok on her own but I think it all has to be taken in context. If you're not hearing at least a few simple sentences that you and others closest to her can understand or you're worried about any other aspects of her social/communication then this might be more cause for concern but otherwise it might be worth waiting until she is 3 at least. You're her mum so push if your instinct is to be concerned but remember that nursery will have seen hundreds of kids too and will know what is typical at this age too xx