24 month old speech - what can I do to help him?

[DarkGreen]

My 24 month old isn't too far along with his speech, he says a few words and starting to say a few phrases but they're variants of the same thing like oh look van, oh look cheese etc. And he is now saying what he sees but mostly single words like ball, car etc

He is trying to communicate with me now and say things and when I ask him do you mean he says no and repeats the phrase but I cant understand him. His speech isn't really clear except some words but clear enough for me to understand most of the time. He does babble more than saying words though most of the time.

Health visitor said she isn't worried because he's under 2.5 and he is extremely active, walked early and is very much a doer, climber, runner, active child.

But I hate the thought of him trying to say something to me and not understanding him.

Is there anything I can do to encourage or help him? I dont want anything too school like, so anything where we can play and teach him?

I'd have a look at ICan. It has a progress checker and some ideas of how to help him.

It might be worth getting him a hearing test too, just to rule it out. You can self refer in most areas.

Trying some simple signs with him might help too like yes, no, eat, drink and more.

Thank you I will have a look x

Just a few ideas that have helped me with my 2.4 year old learning to talk. Just in case helpful

• when I started to sing rhymes or read parts of familiar books we'd read loads I'd pause at the end of a sentence...I did it as an experiment and it turned our he could often remember and say that word but had never said it independently without prompting so was holding onto some words. I started doing this a lot and was surprised how it brought things along
• I read a really good tip once about expanding on what they say. So repeating back what they've said but with positive praise and additional words. So for example if he says "red car!", You might reply with "yes, you want to play with the red car" or "yes clever not, the car is red and shiny!"
• there's this cbeebies programme I find quite good called yaka dee? I'm not really into the whole baby phonics, teaching them like they're already at school thing but this one's quite good. They'll choose a word per episode and literally repeat it with loads of visuals then there's a section at end where children say the word again and I've found watching the odd episode of that has introduced more words in
• finally giving some choices has helped stretch him a bit - another tip someone told me. So saying something like "would you like the apple or banana for your snack?" - he may not answer first few times and nmay just point or nothing at all but I found doing this a few times throughout the day eventually stretched him by him having to try to use a word to answer me rather than me leading him so not giving him the chance

Hope that helps x