Speech regression 19 month old

[Itsmee12329]

Hi, just looking some advice. my little one has been meeting all milestones pretty well and ahead of time, but from around 15 months pretty much stopped talking - now at 19 months still no progress. She was saying mama, dada, nana, ta ta, hiya, hi, what’s that, no, rawr, woof woof, and trying her best to copy a lot of what we said.

around 15 months she stopped saying things, we put it down to speech regression & thought she’d pick up soon where she left off, but after 4 months she still isn’t showing any interest in speaking. She will still say ‘no’ but that’s about the only word she regularly uses. Occasionally with a lot of encouragement she will say ‘ma’ but I don’t feel she’s actually calling me or referring to me as ‘ma’ she’s just saying it as we basically pestered her to.

I have spoked to out HV, who feels it is a concern and has referred on to speech & language therapist. I’m trying not to jump to conclusions but I myself have ASD & I’m worried that she could to.

she is still very young and it could be because of anything but there have been absolutely no drastic or even small changes in her life, she’s a happy child, but does have a bit of a short fuse. She lashes out with other children, doesn’t share at all and will hit if anyone tries to take things off her even adults. She will kick and scream if I take something off her, she’s been taught to share as she has an older sibling, but she’s never actually taken to the idea of sharing. She’s happy to be left alone to do her own thing, doesn’t need or want much attention, doesn’t really show much interest in getting attention but again she is only 19 months so it could be down to her age.

I no I’ve said I’m trying not to jump to conclusions, but it’s hard not to as we never had any of these concerns with her older sibling, he was a happy child too but more of a cowardly child & less daring.

has anyone else’s child experienced speech regression that’s lasted thing long without an obvious cause? Or did you ever find out the cause? If so what was it?

My son is nearly 3. Also had the same speech regression. Would say maybe one or two words for a few days then never say them again.

I think at one stage he hadn’t said mama for nearly a year. He literally would learn (listen), practice randomly maybe once or twice in no context, drop it entirely and never repeat it again; and then be silence until he moved onto a new word.

At about 2.5 though the language just came out like a torrent. He speaks in incredibly complex sentences with a really good vocabulary much more so than his peers who were chatting away and quite easy to comprehend very early. His sentence formation is great, his tonation, his imagination and ability to craft complex stories or express more difficult ideas like feelings or concepts.

Hes only just turning 3 so no idea if he will be NT or ND in the long run. But really try not to worry. Some are just late to the party. Or maybe they arent ‘late’ and they are early and just focusing on listening/ understanding properly rather than parroting. I always felt he knew what was going on well. And thought we were the stupid ones for trying to get him to parrot away 😂

We are also dealing with terrible 2s so you have my condolences. He’s a very solo player too and entertains himself. He has only recently started group play the past few months.

@Toddlerhelpplease123 aww thank you for your reply, that is very reassuring. Our little girl was very chatty, always babbling away and interested in learning new words, she was calling me mama & here daddy - dada. She looked at our mouth and tried to copy, she had a genuine interest in speaking. And then she just stopped, I done a bit of research and it said she could be learning a new skill like walking or climbing, but she genuinely walked from 10 months & 3 days, crawled from 6.5 months, and before she walked she could get up our stairs by crawling, she climbed on & off the sofa etc too. And before she walked she was always pulling herself up on things etc. She runs everywhere even now, she’s always on the go.

I’ve tried to find a reasonable reason for what could be causing the speech regression and we cannot figure it out, she listens though even when we aren’t talking to her, if I say to my husband I’m heading to the shop when you walk to the door she’s standing there waiting. Lol!

but when I sit with her with books, or pictures trying to encourage her to copy me, or make the sounds from the books she just won’t. She doesn’t listen if we speak directly to her, she doesn’t engage, her brother will try to encourage her and she shows no interest. I’m hoping it’s something simple and hoping the speech and language appointment won’t take to long as I would love if they could shed some light on the cause.

I hate to compare kids, and don’t ever do it. But I had a memory pop up on my phone of her older brother from a few years back, he’s younger than her and really engaged with us, speaking, copying, saying his own words and enjoying our company. This is something that has became quite apparent to us to, she doesn’t seem to enjoy engaging with us, she is more of a loner. Her brother would laugh and play, and try to get us to play with him. She’s more like ‘don’t touch my toys’ kind of child so it’s a little hard to sit and play with her as she doesn’t like you lifting her toys, she will physically drag them out of your hand. She does enjoy music and a wee dance, but sharing & playing is something she prefers to do alone xx

My youngest did this. Age 2.5 he's got a few words back. HV unconcerned. I'm sure it's autism, I'm autistic as are my other two children.

Delayed speech does not mean no speech ever and it's not a sign of low intelligence. It's just different needs. I have a sibling who was I think 4 or so before speaking and he's fully functioning intelligent man working full time mortgage social life etc just a bit quirky

@Burntt this is why I’m concerned because I’ve ASD too along with ADHD and just worrying as I’ve been told a lot of children who have it - that genetics have played a large part. To be honest I wouldn’t care if she did have it, I’d rather know if did as I wouldn’t want her getting to school age and being seen as a badly behaved child - as least if we new then she could get the right support and enable her to have a great education. I function fine with it and lead a normal life and I’m sure if she has it she will be fine too, hoping her speech is something that we can work on and improve

Sorry you are going through this worry. Is she doing anything else differently ? Playing with her hands a lot or any repetitive hand movements ?

To answer your question , our daughter had a regression and every health professional said all babies are different and not to compare etc. turned out to be rett syndrome. Once we knew, it was almost a relief as we could start getting her the medical equipment and therapies she needed .
I hope it's just a phase for your daughter and with any luck she will be fine

@toomanyjobsforonewoman we have noticed she does this head shaking thing, I’ve actually got a couple of videos of her doing it, the health visitor asked us about head shaking/hand flapping and told us to keep and eye for it but I had noticed this before but thought maybe due to excitement. But I’ve taken some videos for when we have her appointment. She does seem alert and has awareness or her surroundings, she will dance etc. but she does prefer to be left alone, she doesn’t enjoy company during play & doesn’t like to share much. Her speech is our biggest concern, she will say some words but it isn’t regular. The only words she would regularly say is no but it sounds more like ‘na’. Occasionally she will say after a ‘ma’ if I keep saying say mama say mama, a lot of the time she will shout or ignore me, and occasionally she will say ‘ma’.. anything she does say isn’t through wanting to it’s not something she picking up or choosing to say it’s more that we have basically begged and went on to her to talk. She will point not necessarily at anything but she does point sometimes to.

awww dear love yous, I’m sure that was a very difficult time for yous, I hope the treatment and therapies are helping yous manage things for your daughter xxx

My daughter has 3 words at 9 months and still only had 3 words at 20 months. She learnt new words but she couldn't retain old words. She even lost mumma and dadda, yay that sort of thing.
We had a language assessment done by the HV team and she scored okish on the 12-18 month assessment but 0 on the 18-24 month one. We were due to move out of area so she didn't do a referral but recommended speaking to our new HV when we moved.
We were given some exercises to help her keep words which helped a little and at 24 months she had about 10 words. Her old nursery closed with no notice when she was 21 months and we had 3 months without childcare. She started at a new nursery at 24 months and we spoke to the new HV although she had a few words she communicated mostly by pointing. As she had gone through a lot of upheaval as said she went come back in 2 months to assess her speech but said the nursery we were with were very good at putting things in place to help support little ones without being asked. When she came back at 26 months her language had come on leaps and bounds and she now used 2 and 3 word sentences.
She's August born and at 2 we thought we would have to defer her school entry but we didn't and she started in September and thriving!

She's under paeds for reflux and allergies and the first thing he asked about was her hearing when we mentioned the speech. She had a development delay when she was 4 months and wasn't responding to sounds so we had her hearing tested then and it was fine so he said we didn't need retesting just something to consider too.

We currently don't have concerns about neurodiversity but there have been times when I have pondered it. We chose a school that seemed to be more child focused and I'm keen to keep advocating her needs with the teacher. Currently they are primarily around her physical health and being one of the youngest and smallest children in the class.

I wouldn’t worry yet! If you get to 3 and she’s still silent then I would start worrying.

As long as she understands then HV said that was the main thing.

And also the skills. It might not be that she’s learning and practicing physical skills. She might have just figured out about cause and effect, the space time continuum, that gravity exists, that shapes can be categorised. It might be skills in her head that you can’t see and she can’t express yet.

Be kind to yourself! 🥰

@Toddlerhelpplease123 were trying not to worry to much just yet and encouraging her & her big brother loves to help lol! But hopefully the speech & language referral doesn’t take to long and we will maybe have a better idea then.🩷 thank you so much for your help xx

@Superscientist aww that’s so good that your daughter is thriving! I’m so glad to hear that. It’s lovely to see them doing well.

we aren’t concerned about her hearing as she would hear the grass growing, this is actually a bit of a pain as we can’t even flush the toilet while she’s in bed sleeping as she would wake haha! So her hearing definitely isn’t a concern. She does respond if we can her name but only seems to when it suits her lol! Other times she will blank us & I no she’s listening because if I said quietly I’m getting some crisps, she would be in the kitchen behind me LOL!

I wouldn’t be to concerned if she was just a late talker, but she did talk & she called me mama. They do babble as baby’s but when I responded to mama she connected it with me and all I got was ‘mama mama’ every time she wanted something, the same with dada etc and gaga for granda & nana for nannie. But all of it has stopped, she occasionally says nana.. the only frequent word she has been using is ‘naaaa’ for no lol! But I’m hoping it’s something that resolves itself in time or with the help of the speech and language therapist.

has anyone ever been to speech & language therapy? And is it any good?

That was what happened with my daughter she stopped using words she previously knew. Including things like mumma yes and no. It wasn't until over 2 that they came back
It's fairly common at this age for them to not respond consistently to their names my 4 yo is still the same .... My partner is the same too!
With hearing there can be a deficit with a small part of the spectrum but can impact speech as it can mean they don't hear all the parts of the word

We did and found out she had Rett syndrome but hopefully this is just a little blip in your wee one's development

Any updates on now she is doing now?

@Peeshy123 hey! Sorry I’m just replying. She’s still the same unfortunately, her speech hasn’t changed at all. Just still using the word no.

she’s very frustrated and has very bad tantrums. Unfortunately we’re still waiting on speech & language appointment, I’m going to give them a call tomorrow to check for an update as to when we should expect an appointment.

she has no interest in people, she hits, bites and screams at other adults & children. She doesn’t enjoy the company of others and doesn’t engage with us still, praying for some answers soon 😭