18mo DS - NO words but good understanding (I think)

[SarahScone]

18mo DS. No words. Seems to have good receptive communication eg, will follow various instructions (providing motivated to do so). Doesn’t tend to point to things in books if asked but is more likely to, for eg, ‘bring the ball to daddy in the garden’, than point out the ball in the book.
Can point to head, nose, eyes, tummy, toes, fingers and teeth (again, needs to be in the mood).
Can clap, points at things to get our attention and will do this for both things he wants (namely food), and things he wants us to see (namely tractors), high fives, waves (as it suits him), gives kisses and I’m sure other things as well.
Responds to name, good eye contact etc etc.
Goes to nursery 4 days a week. They have noted the lack of words but not flagged anything else.
ASQ is fine apart from communication. And speech and language tracker suggest referral to salt.

He doesn’t: do any real mimicking. He will copy things like a fake cough, kissing sounds, clicking in your throat, but seemingly not noises involving vocal cords. He doesn’t babble back and forth but he does babble a lot. He has a noise he makes with an upward inflection that he uses to kind of ‘chat’ to us.
And he has NO words (not mama/dada/animal sounds etc)

We have an initial appointment with SALT booked and a hearing test to rule out deafness/glue ear.
But in the meantime, anyone with similar experience care to share their story?

Hi @SarahScone I can very much relate to your situation. My son is 20m and very similar he wouldn’t have really babbled has started to in more recent weeks make more noises but no words.
His index finger pointing has come better now and his joint attention is good.
Like your little one I believe his understanding to be good and he folllows directions well.
I have continued to raise with HV and he has had his hearing checked which was fine. I have had a private speech assessment who seemed encouraging and felt the words would come given his understanding and engagement during sessions.
Sometimes I feel encouraged by his behaviours and other times I don’t.
it is a big worry at the min though.

My son had no words at 18 months, hardly any babble, didn't copy sounds, he said "eee" a lot. No real gestures and he had only just learnt to clap at that point. He also didn't follow instructions and we had no idea if he understood. He always had good eye contact and always responded to his name though. We were worried about speech and pushed for a hearing test which was fine. We were told at that time he was too young for SALT. We considered going private but it was hundreds for the initial assessment alone. People kept saying he would have a language explosion over night and it would all be fine, but it didn't happen like that for us. He has made massive progress but it's been slow.

He's 28 months now, he can point, wave, blow kisses, all gestures etc, follow two step instructions, count to 10, knows all his colours and body parts and says around 30 words/approximations and is beginning to put 2 words together. He is on the wait list for salt because he struggles to say the initial word sound for some words and only me and my husband really know what hes saying a lot of the time.

Your little one sounds completely fine, if they can point, do gestures, identify body parts and follow instructions when they want to at 18 months then it doesn't sound like you have anything to worry about in terms of autism or development delay. 18 months is actually very young still for speech, it will come.

One thing that helped my son was that we started to use simple makaton sign language for functional words like more, milk, water, eat, please, open, thank you and he picked it up really quickly which i was suprised by. Not only the sign but he tries to say the word too. I would start by picking one sign and constantly modelling it every day. It really helped my sons communication and I think it was the starting point to getting him to communicate more.