Toddler has lots of words but won't combine them

[Rgb1993]

My 21 month old son has lots of words. He had ~50 at 12 months and that's when I stopped counting. He has nouns, verbs, adjectives, pronouns, uses plural and tenses correctly but he doesn't form sentences. He learnt the alphabet at 15 months and knows his colours. But when he's talking he just says one word at a time and waits for my answer or further question. Sometimes when he's VERY frustrated he'll say multiple words like 'more peaches now!!!' But it doesn't happen often. When I ask him to repeat me saying multiple words he'll just give me a synonym. Is this normal? I'm starting to worry because it seems unusual

It sounds unusual so I wouldn’t rule anything out in terms of ASD etc but just a couple of things that might help/ reassure.

1. the average two year old will be just starting to put 2 words together. As your child is not yet 2, they are actually still tracking ahead of average.
2. in order to encourage use of descriptive words, it’s helpful to focus on using the noun first and then the descriptor second in a sentence e.g. “that CAR is YELLOW”. This structure is more helpful for children learning language because they naturally focus on the noun being the first identifiable word.

I’m no expert but have two small children and a parent who was a speech and language specialist so have received similar advice over the years and it seemed to track for us. I would see where your child is in terms of progress once they turn 2 and go from there. But keep a note of anything that worries you now so that you can raise it when you’re with the health visitor. It could be relevant.

My youngest was exactly like this - he had a huge vocabulary and could spell out words, so simple maths but didn’t start putting words together (apart from very occasionally) until he was 2 and a bit. I was slightly concerned as my eldest was very different, as he was talking in 3 or 4 words sentences by the time he was 18 months. However, of the two, my youngest is by far the chattier and more socially confident of the two boys now they are older. He was talking very well by 3 years old, and actually when he started school at 4, they wanted him to miss a year and go straight into year 1, partly because of how well he spoke and could explain things. I didn’t allow this and he completed reception with his correct cohort which was invaluable in my opinion.

Just keep doing what you are doing, and his connected speech will come.

Stop worrying. All normal. Aspects are advanced such as the words to describe the follow on (ie ‘huge car’ becomes ‘bus’) unusual for association at that age.

My son is 7. Speech and language delay. Has been seeing a therapist for years.

I wouldn’t be concerned at all right now. The only marker they’re concerned for at this age is shared joint attention, name recognition and words vocab count (even that’s loose).

Hi any updates please

Hello, I know this is an old thread, but it sounds like I’m in a similar situation with my 21 month old as you were with yours when you posted this. May I ask if things ended up working themselves out? I’m trying to figure out how concerned I should be.

A child with a lot of words (and gestures?) has less need to connect words than a child with a few.

My son was stuck on two words for a while (mama and up), because in combination, he could get anything he wanted using those words.

Starting with colours of cars is good because they move - too fast to point, changing all the time and they tend to capture the attention as they pass.

My husband invented a high five game for every time they spotted a red car.