my ds isn't talking yet

[mummysgoingmad]

my ds is 17months and can only say mum. we have tried getting him so say other things but nothing helps..is this normal? Surely he should be speaking by now? He doesn't point to what he wants or anything so its hard to understand him sometimes which must be frustrating for him.

Is there anything i should be doing or could do to try and spur on his speech??

Lack of age appropriate speech should always be checked against other communication milestones (pointing, shared attention, non verbal communication). There is nothing to lose, if there is nothing wrong, your child won't be affected but if there is, you can start work on improving the outlook for your child. If a child had a high temperature, you would not just say - oh well I'll have a think about it later, lots of children in our family used to have high temperatures etc. Obviously it's scary to think about the possibility of a real problem but it's better to be informed than not.

That's a great analogy cyberseraphim!

I'll happily take her (to the HV?) to be checked out, I just wasn't sure if her behaviour IS actually age inappropriate...?

Kiwipanda.. sorry, missed your post earlier. Doesn't sound a concern at this stage. Textbook norm is 11 -15 months for a first 'true word' (e.g. not just babbled syllables), with an explosion of words between 18 and 21 months, combining words some time between 18mths and 24months.
Of course, there are always those who are earlier and later but within normal limits. You would expect about 8-10 intelligible words by 18 months. At this age, they don't understand a tremendous amount either so if she's understanding simple instructions without gesture, that's fine. Though I should say I don't work so much with the teeny tots any more so my norms are based on memory, really. The HV will know at the 18 month check, no real rush to do anything before then as she is showing you that she wants to communicate and pointing etc. HTH.

Ok I was going to start a thread about this soon, but will hide my concerns in here instead.
My DD is 17 months now and has no words except for Dada and mama and these are kind of at the right people. She has tried to say banana once when I said it and yesterday I was washing my DS's hands and saying rub rub rub and she tried to say it too.
If it was just this I might not be too concerned but reading what cyberseraphrim said above about pointing, shared attention and non verbal communication I am a bit more concerned. She does not point, does not bring me toys to look at, does not play with me, will look at books, but as soon as I try and read to her she looses interest. She is lovely, but doesn't seem to want to bring us in to her world or share it with us, IYSWIM?
She does show some level of understanding - for example she grabs her feet when I say we are going to put shoes on, but there is no way she would go and get the shoes for me.
Oh and she doesn't follow my point either.
She does answer to her name though.
She LOVES playing peeka boo and will play with us, so that is hopeful right?
I did mention the non pointing thing to the HV last time I saw her and she asked me to bring her back at 18 months if she is still not pointing.
Does anyone have any thoughts?

Well there does seem to be a lot of good advice on here; I think it's wise to ask the health visitor or gp about his speech just to put your mind at rest.
This said though my ds was 26months before he said even 1 word, he is now 11 and one of the brightest boys in his class, his speech is absolutely fine and was before he started reception.
This really could be nothing to worry about so please don't let all this talk of autism etc. worry you too much.
I found the book "baby talk" by Sally Ward (I think) very helpful as it gives you things to do with your child that can help him pick up some more words.Try talking to him as much as you can without background noise.
I remember feeling that his delayed speech was my fault some how-I had let him watch too much tv,not talked to him enough or something. It was such a relief when dd could not be shut up from about 12mths!

This is really interesting - my ds has been for a hering test, has perfect hearing but the doctor we seen afterwards was a bit concerned that he'd had so many infections, and that he wasn't really talking, more babbling. She said she would refer him to a ear nose and throat specialist and said his ears were very clogged up.

I managed to get his ears cleaned out last night and the the waxy substance that i got out his ears was , i'm sure you'l imagine that he rarely lets me near his ears as they're always sore.

IwishIwerewitty "She does not point, does not bring me toys to look at, does not play with me, will look at books, but as soon as I try and read to her she looses interest. She is lovely, but doesn't seem to want to bring us in to her world or share it with us, IYSWIM?"

Ditto!

"She does not point, does not bring me toys to look at, does not play with me, will look at books, but as soon as I try and read to her she looses interest. She is lovely, but doesn't seem to want to bring us in to her world or share it with us, IYSWIM?"

I was not meaning to worry people to death esp as the age is so young but yes these are issues to keep an eye on. There is no one acid test just a series of observations mainly based on how well the child can follow another's interest, or use some means to draw another's interest to their concern. If you made a big fuss about saying 'Oh look oh look, there's something amazing in the next room' and acted all excited, would the child join in or show interest ? Or if he or she really really wanted an item, what would he or she do to get the adult to respond ?

mummygoingmad - I was going to ask about his health but you've wrote about that... Cos' my boy is 19 months and at 17 months he could say nothing. 18 months 1 word. He has been very ill since Jan ( possibly ill since he was born) and just this week gone onto a special diet.

And in the last 2 days he's come out with 3 words and several possible words but trying to not get too excited and think everything he babbled is deffo a word.

He was a slow walker/ crawler. Slow at everything. Can't hold a sippy cup.... Oh the list is endless.

So I think good health is important to development.

Don't worry - he'll get there but if you are worried speak to HV/ Dr etc... And don't think there is an issue if they refer you - it's the norm.

Ds didn't start talking until after 2ys old - and then started talking loads.

I don't agree with mrsbean that early intervention can't hurt, pil were concerned about ds' lack of speech and honestly set him back each time he saw them - he did not react well to pressure to talk. Once we stopped them from hassling him he relaxed and started experimenting with sounds much more, which helped him get to the point where he was really talking.

Sometimes early intervention can make dc feel that there is something wrong with them when there just isn't.

If speech is the only issue then intervention won't usually be needed but it's the other issues that need to be to looked at - but it's a difficult area as we are not all talking about the same thing - a friend once told me that her ds definitely could not talk but all she meant was that the 'th' sound was not well articulated which was not what I was concerned about

I wouldn't worry. My DD1 was 17 months before walking and 23 months before saying her first word.

Only took her a couple of weeks to start putting 2 word sentences and now at almost 4 doesn't shut up!!

Please don't worry (although I know I did when everyone elses little ones were talking at 15 months), they're storing it all up and will talk when they are ready to.

ib, when I mentioned early intervention, I meant appropriate early intervention.. which doesn't include pressure to speak from a SALT perspective. In fact, one of the most commonly utilised early intervenions is based on modifying the pressure that can arise when an adult in the child's life is worried.. it involves backing off: reducing questions, balancing turn-taking, following the child's lead based on their interests, spending time together without expectations of talk etc.

In the case of kids who are delayed, it is usually quite effective.

I would caution anyone from delaying an assessment because there are a good number of children out there who didn't speak until two and that was just their individual developmental path.. of course, the chances of a serious speech/communication disorder are slim, but as cyberseraphim pointed out, the same is true of a high temperature: millions of kids have benign temperatures annually but it's not worth ignoring on this basis alone. Similar thing with, say, cervical smears. There are far more negative than positive smears but we all go for screening regardless. It's about offsetting risk.

mrsBean - I think what you are saying when you refer to 'Intervention' is 'early assessment and monitoring from trained professionals', whereas what IB has experienced is 'pressure from well meaning but overbearing GPs'

I think there is a great chasm between the two!

I agree that there is a huge chasm between the two - but I am often concerned about the effect on parents, and through them on the dc, of insisting on professional assessment based only on absence of speech as early as 17 months.

Wouldn't it be better to educate parents as to other indications as to whether or not there is a problem, such as pointing, non-verbal communication, etc?

Absolutely ib, but the budget for health promotion for SLT is more or less non-existent.

To be fair, a professional assesment (as far as a toddler is concerned) involves meeting a new person who chats with their mum/dad/carer for a bit and then playing with some toys. In some cases, it might not even involve that much: it might be as simple as the family dropping in to a session with other parents of children under 4 in a Children's Centre nursery type setting, where parents play with their kids and the toys and the SLT wanders round and has a wee chat. In some areas, assessment is done entirely in settings (where the child is in one) so they don't even know! Not really that scary!

When you're at that stage - when a problem has recently been picked up on, and your child is undergoing assessment or awaiting a block of SALT, I would recommend getting a picture dictionary book. They aren't expensive.

LONG before my son ever spoke, and when we were in between two blocks of SALT, I felt quite frustrated as it seemed to me that the SALT made no difference! but I had very unrealistic expectations. I thought he'd have a block of speech therapy and pretty soon afterwards start chatting.

But on the advice of the SALT, we looked through this picture dictionary book every day. I pointed at and said repetitively the words I knew he definitely understood. He never even made a sound, but at least I could visualise a 'peg' forming in his brain and it made me keep going with it.

The SALT had explained it to me as - he needs a firm peg on which to 'hang' the sound (word). She said that the more you repeat the word to him the firmer the peg. That analogy made me see the point in going over these words and pictures day after day with no obvious improvement!! If she hadn't explained it that way, i would have thought 'oh this is so pointless' and stopped bothering. But now 18 months on from that frustrating stage, he now speaks very well. He can't say Ss and he mixes up some consonants and he can't form clusters yet, but I almost always understand him, and when I do understand him I realise that his sentence construction is absolutely correct! iyswim.

So the point I'm making..... IS. Get a picture dictionary!