18 Months Old : Speech

[Mama0ftw0]

Good evening all,

If anyone happens to come across my post with an 18 month old or family member aged 18 months or even Childcare Provider, how many words on average are they saying?

I know that I can speak to the HV etc but I just wanted to jump on and ask.

Thanks in advance.

If you have a look at the Communication Section of the 18 month Ages & Stages it will give you an idea of what most 18 month olds will be achieving. Not all though obviously.

Is this your DC that we're talking about?

At 18 months mine only had about 5 words. I was concerned, but a lot of childminders told me the word explosion happens closer to 2 for some of them. She gathered a bit of momentum from about 21 months and then at about 23 months the trajectory increased. She used to be where grey meets white for ages and stages with communication, but now she is a bit into the white. She's incredibly physically adept and we are very outdoorsy and her nursery were good at putting my mind at ease by reminding me that it can depend upon what you do with them, and we are out in the woods a lot - she can walk for 2 hours on tough terrain, but she can't count, for example. I got quite worried at 22 months but things started to take off shortly after that and have continued to increase since then.

At that age my daughter has 3 words which in itself wasn't a concern but she had 3 words by 9months but different words as she was unable to retain words.
We had an assessment by the HV at 20 months and she scored okish on the 12-18 months assessment and 0 on the 18-24 which put her slightly behind.
We were due to move out of area so they didn't do a salt referral but said to get her checked again after the move and gave us some exercises.
We moved when she was 24 months and had her 2 y assessment at 26 months by which point there were no concerns and she was using 2 and 3 word sentences.
Her nursery closed at 21 months and we went 3 months without childcare whilst having a stressful life. Two months at the new nursery and a more stable less stressful life at home and she flourished. It later turned out that the original nursery was poor and a non nurturing environment whereas the new nursery was very good and her HV said they were very good at working on weakness without being asked. When she started at 24 months she had about 10 words and mostly communicated by pointing!
She's 4 now, started school in September only a few weeks after her birthday and is doing really well despite being one of youngest!

@Mama0ftw0 there's a really good speech & language progress checker here.

It will tell you if your LO is on track or needs some support

Thank you all for taking the time to get back to me.

I have completely forgot at what point my other child hit certain milestones or how many words they were saying etc. I know each is different and you should not compare but I was worried as someone said the other day ohh they don’t say much do they.

Well my 18 month old is saying about 3 clear words I would say and a lot of waffling.
Also if I say a word for example let’s put this in the bin they run to the bin before I even start to move so I know they understand certain words / actions but not say many words.

Thanks the responses have helped. @TinyMouseTheatre @teaandkittehs @Superscientist

It's amazing how quickly you do forget isn't it?

How did he do in the progress checker that I linked to?

Sounds like their language and communication is developing nicely. My daughter could understand so much more than she could articulate and was able to communicate most of her needs by looks and pointing. Words are just part of communication and it sounds like he's starting to build and hopefully some of the waffling starts to progress towards more words. I would still keep an eye on things but as long as he's moving in a positive direction I wouldn't fret. If progress stalls it might be worth checking in with the HV.