Speech Development

[JoAnne427]

Hello - my dd is 22 months. She is very chatty, and loves to ramble on. Most of her words, however, are unintellible. I have a lot of friends who have children her age (I know I shouldn't be doing that comparing thing!), and they are saying so many words, small sentences etc. that I am beginning to worry.

I've finally realized that she is not able to pronounce hard consenants. She is mostly speaks with vowel sounds. Is this common? DP has been worried about, and I hadn't been. I kept saying that I am sure she won't be at a restaurant as an adult ordering a baba of wine. But now I am started to get concerned as she is resorting to pointing and wailing to get what she wants, because when she talks, no-one can understand her.

Am I overreacting?

Oops - I meant unintelligible! and consonants! Blasted thing didn't let me preview!

Hi JoAnne427 At my dd's 2 year check with the health visitor it was noted that she had a speech problem. We had not noticed anything in particular and just assumed she was a little slower than others her age. She was referred to a speech therapist who confirmed that she did had not moved onto the second set of sounds (fricatives I think she called them). She gave me some exercises to do at home though my dd was never very keen. Since starting nursery school her speech has improved enormously and although she still says words incorrectly, when gently prompted she can now say them correctly and it will only be a matter of time before she only says them correctly. Sorry to be so long winded but I just wanted to give you some background info.

My dd never got annoyed when we didn't understand her; in fact she used to think of other ways of saying things and even mimed sometimes. Because your dd gets frustrated however it might be an idea to seek help - do you know if her hearing is OK? My dd had several hearing tests and because she often had colds at the time of the tests it was only after the third one that we were able to discount this as a possible explanation for her speech 'problem'. During colds the ears are often blocked so your dd may not be hearing words correctly and therefore cannot repeat them.

joanne427 my ds1 (three and a half) uses mainly vowel sounds and it makes life very difficult. His speech problem has (until last week!) been ignored as he is also autistic and I've been told that 'all autistic children can't speak" (absolute rubbish but still). Anyway last week we finally got a speech therapist and she discovered that the sounds he isn't making correspomds to the part of the hearing test he failed in his left ear- when you add in glue ear in the right I think this is probably the key to his problem.

Another possibility is verbal dyspraxia- this can sometimes be found with oral dyspraxia but can occur alone. There is a brilliant website called www.apraxia-kids.org/
(apraxia is the american term for verbal dyspraxia) which will give loads of info and signs

However 22 months is still very young and you may well have nothing to worry about. However because of the total lack of services I would say get yourself on a waiting list now- you can cancel appointments very easily if you end up not needing help.

For further help you can always try www.afasic.org.uk/ they're very good and there may be a local group near you (I've found their helpline useful as well)

sorry about the links by the way- whenever I try to do more than one- it's doesn't work! Grrrr

Thanks for your responses! I will look into those websites, and I am going to make an appointment with a specialist. She has had a lot of colds, and ear infections, I wonder if that may have something to do with it...

JoAnne427, my youngest is only 16 months and I can't quite remember about my eldest, so take this with a grain of salt. I think that speech is one of the most variable developments, so the average age for such and such a milestone has a huge standard deviation. Don't worry. It'll come, she's still very young. It always helps me to choose a time to be worried .. maybe ask your ped at the two year check and see what she says, then go from there. Chances are, you'll be reassured by what you hear.

How are you doing?

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JoAnne427, every child is very different in their speech development and your daughter is obviously very communicative. The fact that she is getting frustrated is an indication that it would be worth talking to a speech therapist as it suggests that she is not able to say as much as she wants to, as well as not everyone understanding the things that she is saying.

One of the first things that they will want to know is how her hearing is, so it is definately worth getting that checked out. If you're in the Uk you can also refer yourself to the speech therapist. You don't have to go through the doctor or hv.

Thanks RobinW for the link - I will look at that today. Also, I am curious about xylito sweets - I'm not familiar with them, and dd just got another ear infection, so I would love to know more! I will do a google search.

CER - I called a speech therapist yesterday, and she agreed that we should probably have an observation done, and have her hearing tested. I didn't realize it, but my state has a "birth to three" program, where they do a complete obversation - fine and gross motor skills, interactive play, hearing, speech, etc., and it is federally funded, so no cost to the parents. We are going to set it up for next week.

Hi JJ - all is well - it has been, and continues to be, quite a year! And you? Are you all loving your new home and country? We got close to two feet of snow on Monday! Quite a winter wonderland...is your sister still here? I think she was pregnant the last time we spoke - how are they doing?

Thanks for the feedback, everyone...

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