20 month old developmental/speech advice

[lsf5055]

looking for advice/wisdom.

Our youngest son is 20 months old and he is a very active, playful, and adventurous toddler. Loves getting into new things and is not shy. He follows commands we give him; such as taking things to the trash, coming over to the sick and putting up his stool to brush teeth, shut doors when we ask, and turns the page in a book when we ask, and will go try to put on shoes when we tell him it’s time to go. He also brings us books when he wants to read and brings us his sippy cup when empty. These are to name a few. He like playing peek-a-boo, being chased around the house, playing catch the the ball, to name a few. He will imitate us of all sorts of actions and engages well with our family. Just always smiling and happy.

Our concerns, he speaks only about 6-7 words regularly. He has said more, but maybe only a few times and then doesn’t say them much. He just doesn’t seem like a big talker, but is my no means “mute”. He will sometime go on big “gibber-gabber” episodes where he uses his lips and points and acts like he is talking to us, he does this multiple times a day. He just isn’t developing speech well, which we are getting the ball rolling with a speech professional too, but my mother did tell me my sister didn’t really talk much until she was 2 years or older as well, between 2-2.5. One other things we noticed after reading a million pages about Autism is that when he is doing something or playing and doing things with various toys, it’s very hard to get his focus off of it, like he will not respond to his name then, but it in general when he’s not pre-occupied he will look at us and respond when we call his name. He does look us in the eye especially more so when he’s not into something and playing. So I’m trying not to “symptom shop” and look for every other detail to see if he is “autistic” but just being a parent I want to do what’s best. In my opinion, if his speech was more advanced, my wife & would never even have thought of the word “autism”. We just wanted to see what everyone has experience has been and if he sounds abnormal or this could just be him? There is no doubt he’s behind on speech, but we are getting the ball rolling on that, but worried if he could be autistic or developmental delays. Just looking for advice/experience from others. Thanks for your help

I think the first thing to do, if you haven't already, is to arrange a hearing test. The SaLT will want to know that his hearing is ok before starting SLT.

How does he do on on this SLT Progress Checker?

I did it and some of the answers I answered no. Mostly he does not say 20 or more words and he doesn’t point to a whole lot. We are going to see someone, we just wanted to see what people thought was up with him through their own personal experiences because he’s not clear cut one way or another.

It is good that you are getting him checked, and I'd agree that a hearing test is usually the first step, but there's also a huge range on 'typical development' of speech at this age. Usually if understanding is good and there are no other concerns, the words will come (quite possibly very fast once they do finally start).

For a personal example, one of my friend's daughter said basically nothing until she was two. Like your son, understanding good, no other developmental concerns, and something of a family history of relatively late speech. The words started coming a bit after she turned two and by three you wouldn't have known she'd been late to speak.

This is an all-round developmental questionnaire if you want to have a sort of overview of what he'd be expected to be able to do: https://www.socfc.org/SOHS/Disabilities%20Mental%20Health/ASQ/ASQ%203%2020%20Months.pdf. There's a scoring bit at the back – they never expected 6 'yeses' in a section, and a section or two in the grey is also quite common and not usually of major concern.

Ok so if it came up with "you answered no to some important questions", it's probably worth booking a call with one of their SLTs and asking their advice. It's free but you could always make a donation to their charity

Thank you! Yeah children definitely have different areas of development! It’s just if he spoke some more words, I would never have thought anything could be wrong. He just seems to have too much personality and seems to engage a lot. He is definitely not shy, but does have the normal “stranger danger instinct”, but is also very outgoing. His older brother is 3.5 and he follows his 1.5 year old brother into new things lol.

My little boy literally had about 8 words when he turned 2, at 2.5 he now does not shut up, talking in fall sentences and having conversations with us. I really wouldn’t worry about it at this stage, sounds like he is concentrating on lots of other skills!

We are in a similar situation, so from my point of knowledge,and after talking to lots of professionals, your child is not autistic, it is just speech delayed. He is not even language delayed, just speech delayed, so you are in a good situation.

The reason behind my view is that his receptive language is adequate, his expressive language is good, his play mode is appropriate, he imitates which indicates beginning of the social skills, so you have none of the autistic traits in him. Hearing is good, as he understands your requests.
You have speech delay, so just focus on that.

Hi any updates