stubborn 2yrold won't talk!!!

[fifi08]

hi there!

here's my problem, please let me know what you think..

DS 2 years old. when he was 11 months he started saying a few words, door, daddy, moma, teddy and over the next few months a few more here and there, up and down and more etc all seemed as the books suggested it should be.. then nothing new for ages as all the babbling started up.. then at around 17 months he bizzarely latched onto colours.. first orange then red then all the rest except blue for some reason.. and the problem now is he refuses to say any nouns!! he'll just point and say red or green or black or whatever but not car or bus or bottle or whatever it is he wants or is looking at! he refuses to sound out words if you try to help him to say anything and will either blank me completely and look past me as i sit there saying buh buh buh or will start slapping his ears and saying no! so i feel that i can't keep pushing.. anytime he does say a new word i'm careful to really praise him but not freak him out by going crazy with cheering and hugging.. he likes books, we read a lot, he adores pingu and would watch it from one end of the day to the other if he could, cracks up at the jokes and gets upset at the sad bits.. i know he doesn't have a problem with his hearing, he can hear a biscuit wrapper at 50 paces or me trying to sneak downstairs in the morning, he understands everything.. i need only point out an object and label it for him once and he remembers it and will point to it in a book or even out of context somewhere else.. i'm getting really frustrated as all his little buddies are saying motorbike and tractor and juice please.. while DS seems to be making a conscious decision NOT to speak.. is it laziness? or is there something wrong? is there ANYTHING i can do to help him, a new approach, a game, phonics??? really need advice on this, not much out there on the topic and as his demands and play get more complex we're having real trouble understanding him and what he needs in that 2 minute window before he gets too frustrated and has a tantrum! help! thanks!!

Does he follow instructions like 'Get your blue shoes then close the cupboard door' ? Are his play skills similar to his peers? Will he engage in social purposes ? Waving bye bye and getting up to greet visitors etc ?

hi there cyberseraphim,

your pointed questions lead me to believe you are a professional in this area? he absolutely follows instructions, understands everything i say..to the point where i have to be careful not to mention anything or promise anything that i can't make happen .. he's sharp as a razor in that respect, remembers everything.. although he tends to repeat things in the way he first encounters them e.g. if it's the first time he goes to a new place when he goes back he'll follow his footsteps again and it seems to be the same for his few words that he does have.. he's never refined them.. e.g. juice is "gu" .. has been from the first day he ever said it!! whereas my friends son started with "chu" then moved to "choos" and can now say juice..re his playskills he's got as good a concentration span as his friends i think e.g. to line up all his cars or put all the pieces of a train set together or to tidy it all away again.. .. until very recently he reacted with terror to people, usually well meaning frail old ladies on the street,poor things, that he didn't know but now says or waves hello, he's now very interested in visitors to the house esp males who he will show off to..having a think about it today i have decided not to mention the colour of ANYTHING to him for the next week or so and not to echo his "red ?" with "yes it's a red shiny car" and to instead just say a "yes! it's a shiny car". to be honest if he hadn't had such a good start with his speech i wouldn't be so worried it's just i feel he's going backwards.. today he was using hand signals (like twisting the top off a jar)and making the noise of a creaking door instead of saying "open"!!!! he uses sounds instead of words for a lot of things come to think of it, animals, planes, helicopters,.. and he used to say the last word if he could at the end of the sentence in a book i used to read to him before bed but now when i pause he just grunts or turns the page.. sometimes i think he's bone lazy and other times i'm amazed at how he finds the lowest common denomenator of a sentence to say it all with just one word/sound.. perhaps i should feign a lack of understanding and he might have to try harder to get me to understand.. although that usually ends in him banging a wall or flinging himself on the floor.. bottom line my main worry is that he makes no attempt to sound out words and if he does try he doesn't seem to be able to connect simple sounds together to form a word e.g. bih - key for biccie or brrr - ick for brick etc.. of course all that said there is the very strong possibility i'm just being a pushy mother ???????

No prof. advice, just wanted to share my experience with dd, 2.5, who was slightly late to start but is now managing to put two fairly well pronounced words together to say want she wants/is looking at/thinking. Sometimes though when I ask a question that I know she knows the answer to, she will just ignore me, stare past or grunt, all of which is frustrating, when a couple of months ago she would have given me a clear answer and a smile. I just think it's part laziness, part disinterest, part 'oh mum stop asking silly questions'! My main concern is that s/he shows understanding, so I wouldn't be too worried.

I'm not a professional but I've met a few in the past two years and these have been the areas that come up - What is the receptive understanding and how does the child communicate in other ways (precursors to speech).

You could try creating more obstacles and making life more difficult for him. Put a favourite toy on a high shelf and pretend you don't understand his attempts to get it down until he uses language to ask. Give him breakfast cereal he doesn't like and wait for him to ask verbally for what he prefers.

I could have written this post... dd was 2 in July and hardly says a thing.... and what she does say is largely either whispered or still baby babble.

My mother is very worried!

She has her 2 year check (belatedly) at the end of this month so will ask the hv then.

FWIW she does seem to have improved recently where we have been making more of an effort to talk just to her about what she is doing. being dc2 she's probably had a lot less input than ds, and i think this explains it really. Am fairly confident it will sort itself out, but Mum's constant "is she saying anything yet" is beginning to get to me.....

Have the very same experience with DD4,(even started a thread as well, that is how worried I was). I have recently notticed that she does not say things because she knows we would like her to and it is "a big deal" for us to hear her speak. She lets herself go and "talks" to her siblings but just smiles at us whenever we try to get a word out of her ... I think she just knows the hold she has on us...

I think We might need to take things a bit easier if in all other aspect they seem to developp properly. Personnaly, I will give it some time and if in 6 mth she still does the same I will go again to HV.

In my case, my 3 other DCs where early speaker and I think that is why it "freacks " me that DD4 is not the same.

snap onthewarpath - ds was a v early talker, and i think my Mum is worried because dd is soooo far behind where he was.

BUT she is bright as a button - understands everything we say and is a force to be reckoned with!

she doesn't respond well to direct attempts to make her speak but come out with little phrases in more relaxed play situations ('save me' was thie morning's...) - will report back when have spoken to hv...

I don't think this is going to go away during the terrible twos. I think you could back off and make your "conversations" more relaxed. Communication shouldn't be fraught. I also want to recommend a book called "It takes two to talk" by the Hanen Foundation. Expensive, worth every single penny and not a milestone chart in sight. It will help you to subtly adjust your own communication techniques to bring out the best in him ("tuning in" rather than "coaching". "Don't say "say"" is one of their mantras). Once you've got your communication techniques with him as good as they can be, you can reassess.
The best answer I've been given to the "is something wrong?" question is "This can be a characteristic of children with a language difficulty BUT it is also a characteristic of a huge subset of two-year-old children!"

good luck.

I think lingle is 'spot on'. Do not try to get him to say things.

Continue to respond to him when he points at things and says something to you by expanding on what he says (as with your example).

Talk to him using short, simple sentences about what he is doing or playing with or looking at.

When reading books together, talk about the pictures and point things out to him. Do not treat it as a test by asking him ''what's that?'', ''what is he doing?'' etc.

Instead, try turning a page and saying something like ''ooh, look....''. Leave a gap to see if he responds.

Also, ready, steady, go type games are good. e.g. running a car down a slope. Hold it at the top and say ''ready, steady......go''. Gradually leave more time before you say 'go' and give him the chance to say it.

Also, encourage 'more'. This can be done with food, tickles, jumping.....anything. I sued to do it with choc buttons (). Give one, ask ''more buttons?''. Wait for some kind of response, then give more. Gradually expect a verbal response (grunt) and then some sort of attempt of the word. The more (and different) 'more' games you play the better.

HTH a little.

Brilliant guys! thank you! i'll defo give the book a whirl lingle! desperatehousewifetoo that is sterling advice thank you and i'll definitely back off a bit in the "trying to make him say things" dept.. i take my example from other children and their mothers and they all respond to the "say this/that/the other method"..!! time to change tack!! hey gladders and onthewarpath! sorry to hear you're in the same boat.. i thought i was giving him too much credit by thinking he was an evil-genius in his blanking and ignoring me.. seems you guys have one as well..!! a friend of mine who also has a "silent sponge" - all seeing-all knowing-no talking (!!) was wondering if they have too much going on in their heads, as in so many words that it's all a bit of an alphabet soup and almost too confusing for them.. so as suggested i'm going to try to keep it simple.. already i can see, not an improvement, but a shift, as i have stopped referring to the colour of anything!! he says red i say car or whatever and he looks a bit puzzled cause he's used to me echoing the red part back in red car.. so maybe in a few weeks things will improve? takes 21 days to change a habit apparently!!! gladders you should tell your mom about this thread and that there's plenty of us out there with the same problem and the fact that your son never had an issue means it's not you!!!!!! i just keep thinking that DS had better show the same steely determination and resolve when it comes to doing his A levels!!! although it's more likely to transfer to the sweet aisle in the supermarket!! thanks again for all the advice! and good luck!!

There's an "It takes two to talk" on Ebay right now.....

Would love to know how you get on.

Will 'watch' this thread, hoping for an update in a few weeks.

My DS is 2.3 and only says daddy and just make sounds for other words, though its the same sound for the same word not the same sound for every word, if that makes sense.

I took him to the docs on friday and she said that so long as i have no concerns about his hearing (the major worry) or that he is developmentally behind in any other (which he definitely isnt) then enjoy the peace and quiet!

I was a late talker, boys are lazier than girls and he'll talk when hes ready was the outcome. She did say to bring him back when hes be 2.5 if hes no further on than this point, but dont worry if hes still not speaking in sentances by 2.5.

She was lovely and just to give a glimmer of hpe to those who are in the same boat, that just because our dc's are talking late, its not always bad news! hth someone else

xx

ds2 only has a few words. i mentioned it to hv when he was 2.2 months. she wasn't to worrieed at that point but if he didn't get better then come back and she would refere him to a speach thearpist. a couple of months later he still wasn't speaking much but he had to go into hospital for an op on his heart. i started going to a toddler group that helps with children who don't do what they should at certain ages. he is now on the 12 month waiting list for the speach theapist. he turned 3 at the beginning of the month and has the speach of a 20-24 month old child. good luck and get on the list

Oh Denbury. 12 months?

my ds had quite a wide vocabulary at 2, but refused to use it.....he was quite happy pointing, or taking me to things he wanted, or using his own noises and pet words.He would repeat words at random as he heard grown ups say them, but then refuse tosay them again. He communicated how he wanted to.....i didn't worry about it, and last christmas (he was 2.5 by then) he started to verbally communicate almost overnight. By february, he was expanding his vocab daily and is a very talkative littleboy now!

Hi everyone!

have had minor success with DS in last week but by golly he makes it hard work!! i had a look at the Hannen website as lingle suggested and there are loads of books and dvds there that seem great! i say this with Denbury in mind.. it's ethos seems to be if you only have a few speech therapy sessions and your child isn't always switched on and tuned in at the time of the session it can be a real pain so the programme seems to say it can help you be your childs personal speech therapist for anytime anywhere sessions when the moment seems right!!! i managed to read a few excerpts from the it takes two to talk book on the Hannen website and what with the dollar-pound exchange it might be worth getting some stuff sent over? it's a Canadian programme. the it takes two book suggests a more conversational approach to developing their speech which seems brilliant but have tried to put it into practice with little success so far.. DS just keeps saying yeah yeah and i have decided to diagnose him with chronic man-itis.. a man of few words with no need to say anything unless absolutely urgent or related to the latest new car/rocket/gadget/dooda... !!! shall persevere though.. and queenrollos story gives me great hope!!!