22 months - worried about speech

[alaska748]

Hi all

My son is 22 months and seems to be a happy charming and outgoing boy. I am however starting to panic about his speech. For context he is in nursery during the week as we both work full time and I speak German to him at home.

While I know some bilingual children can take longer to speak, I am worried about the fact that my son has fewer than five words at the moment. He knows to say dad, sometimes says ball or bear but hasn’t said these for a few weeks now. At one point he knew “door” but has forgotten this now. Instead he points at everything and says what sounds like “what is that”. Constantly. When we explain what he is pointing at he makes no effort to repeat the word back.

Should I be worried? Key things that keep me up at night - the fact he has almost no words and then seems to forget the ones he does. The constant “what is that”.

friends and family have told me not to worry becuase he is such an engaging and charismatic child but I cannot help but panic and feel like I have failed when him when I look at all other children his age.

any advice / thoughts very welcome.

I'm not really sure about DC who are bilingual, have you had a look in the Multicultural Family Section?

As you ve said he's lost words that he did have, there's no harm in trying to get referred for speech therapy as the waiting lists are horrendous, it's better to get on one now and turn out not to need it than wait.

I'd agree that if he seems to have lost words he did have, that's worth a call to the health visitor or GP for a developmental review. Some places still have drop-in speech and language sessions, I think – if yours does, worth going along to one to see what they think.

That said, very few words at this age doesn't necessarily mean there's a problem. (I think for bilingual children, they don't necessarily speak later, but you have to count words across both languages, so if he know dog and Hund, that's two words, not one. Animal sounds count too.) How's his understanding and his nonverbal communication? Does he understand most of what you say to him about daily life? Does he wave, point, use other gestures to get his point across?

Thank you all for your replies - for some reason I wasn’t notified of them! In the end @skkyelark and @1990shopefulftm we did ask for a referral for speech therapy which they agreed to. They have confirmed his receptive communication is great and that eye contact etc are all great too - just the speaking seems delayed. We have weekly therapy sessions and are also having a hearing test done. Fingers crossed he starts babbling non stop soon! Thanks for all your advice