19 months not answering yes/no questions

[ItalianMUM89]

Hello! I am a first time mum and i am wondering if my son has atypical language development.
He is 19 months old and has many words and starts to string 2 words together like mummy come, open dor,baby sleeps etc. He can follow 1 step command well when in the mood, knows most body parts and is good at picture recognition. He will also recognize single element of a picture like the wings of a bird if asked to. He is answeing well where and what is that questions.. will point and say there for where questions and name the object if i ask him what is that.
However he will not answer easy yes no questions (but he uses no a lot) or choose verbally between two objects.
If i ask him do you want a biscuit he will either run to the kitchen or just ignore me. If i show him a biscuit he might also answer no if he doesn't want it (but to answer no he usally needs this visual clue..so rather as a refusal than a proper answer) but ignore me or just smile if it is a yes.
Is this age appropriate? I have seen a lot of toddlers his age answering yes no questions even if not accuratly (also some kids having less vocabulary than my son).
In addition if i ask him " do you want an apple or a banana" he will usally not answer but if i show hime the two options he will point to one.

In additions he reverts propnuns like yours and mine (which as i got below 24 months can still be ok)

How does he do on this progress checker @ItalianMUM89?

@SiouxsieSiouxStiletto which progress checker? Can you send me the link?

Whoops sorry about that!

It should be here

It tells me you answered yes to important questions and that he is ok.

But it does not ask anything about answeing yes no questions

any updates please ?

Hello @Claire123e
So my son is now 2.7 and doing well. He is verbally quite advanced for his age and we have little conversations. He started to answer first choice questions around 21 months and yes and no came later, I belive around 22-23 months. Before this his answers were something like this: do you want a snack? (No=ignoring, yes=snack!or want snsck). To help him with yes no questions we did some games, like I was asking him :is this a frog ?(showing a car). No! Is this a car? Yes. I exaggerated a lot my answers and he liked it a lot and than it clicked after ca 1 month. I don't know if it was the game or if it was just him maturing. Pronoun reversal lasted until ca 2.3 years.

I am Italian as well and so happy to know your son is doing well . My DD sounds exactly like your son when he was her age .
she just turned 20 months . She can say up to 100 words , can distal pointing , waves and claps , does a lot of pretend play , has always brought us toys / books etc , follow commands to an extend like it is “ bath time “She is also a good sleeper ( can self settle after the bottle ) and very affectionate, a bit wilful though . She imitates everything . She has good joint attention and always look where I am pointing . Now to the point of this post .
She has separation anxiety and poor eating .
My immediate concern is echolalia ( immediate ) She occasionally repeats phases she hears from nursery rhymes or is and most of the time uses them in appropriate situations but not always . She also has delayed echolalia ( ex when I say “ do you want milk ? She says “ milk it is coming “ she leaned from us a while back .
She can identify animals on books and tv but can’t answer where is daddy ?
She can tell me when she does a “poo “
She doesn’t point to request but she uses words when she wants something out of reach .
She tenses up and tippy toes when excited and just started with a bit of arm flapping .
My HV , GP don’t see a reason to assess her. I don’t know what to do at this point or what other families have tried for echolalia or when does it go away .
Many thanks ☺️

Hello @Claire123ee !
Sorry dor the delayed answer.
Parroting back at 20 months is completely developmentally appropriate and part of language development. Mine was a complete parrot at that age. And most toddler I have seen were the same.
Regarding not answering questions I spoke with a speech pathologist. She told me that some toddlers just are later to answer yes or no because it can be a very abstract concept for them. She told me that it is more important to evaluate comprehension that they are able to answer choice questions by 22-24 months (but also for this you still have time). I had similar concerns regarding my boy and now that he is 2.5 most of them are gone. When he was around 20 months he was speking a lot but was mostly one sided (eg not answering often questions), but I think it was more his character.
Also he was always saying thing like you wanrmt milk insteaf of i want wilk. Or bravo when he did well. I was conecrned of delayed echolia. However this all stopped once he got the hang of pronouns and his vocabulary incresed. Now anyway we can have very good conversations, he answers also complicated quesions (when in the mood) and asks pleny of them himself (why phase). He is indeed quite advanced verbally and also uses conditional verbs mostly accurately.
Tiptoe walking at 20 months is even a milestone (to learn to jump) And had flapping (if not too excessive) is also quite common at that age.