Delayed speech?

[Bumblebee39]

DS is 18m nearly
Has very few words at all, just babbles.
Should he be speaking?
Responds and mirrors, just doesn't talk
When should I be concerned?
What can I do to help?

Does he make eye contact and respond to you? Might be worth making an appointment with the health visitor.

This site is helpful for assessment of whether there might be a problem www.talkingpoint.org.uk and I'd also recommend the book 'Small Talk' by Nicola Lathey. You can ask your health visitor to refer to speech therapy though often they won't do anything until the child is two, or sometimes SLT run drop in sessions at children's centres. My daughter had a speech delay as part of global delay due to epilepsy and I found the above resources useful.

He makes eye contact and responds. At 1 he was doing well verbally but hasn't moved forwards how I'd have expected
Is it the dummy?

Did the assessment it said he may need a referral but actually I only answered no to one question so I'm not overly concerned I will keep an eye on it though and if by 2 hrs still behind I'll go from there
Going to try some dummy free times as well as I'd like to get him off that anyway

Hello, my son had delayed speech at the same age (he's 6 now) at his 18 month check my HV referred him for speech therapy as the waiting list in our area is huge, turns out he had terrible glue ear, needed grommets x2 since age 2 and had lots of speech therapy including at a specialist unit 2 sessions a week which he has just graduated from and his speech is still unclear. I would do all you can at this stageccto get him seen for his hearing and chase up any SALT referrals. Good luck xx

Hi,

My DD was exactly the same at this age. I spoke to the HV numerous times but was told that she was too young for them to do anything and as long as she was understanding us then that was okay.

I was worried, but she turned 2 in October, and over the last few weeks, her language has exploded. She’s picking up new words every day, and is even talking in short sentences.

Hope everything works out for you😊

He's never had a hearing test so might be worth it had a run of ear infections and cold-y things

If you haven't tried them, I recommend one of the Singing Hands DVDs, with some Something Special (BBC iPlayer) thrown in, to learn some Makaton to keep the two of you going. It was amazing to have my DC be able to communicate the basics, even though the speech wasn't there yet. The first Singing Hands DVD was really good, had lots of essential toddler words with toddler-friendly songs and actions.

Do they have anything like it on YouTube? Thanks

Seconding singing hands/ something special to encourage a bit of signing, it can be very encouraging to them. Don’t think they’re on YouTube, but well worth the money, my DD has watched them literally hundreds of times, especially singing hands.
My DD also liked “filling in the gaps” of stories. We did the same ones over and over and over and left longer gaps so that she started filling in longer chunks rather than individual words, I think that helped her get used to the pattern of sentences.

I no longer have a DVD player unfortunately (can't risk laptop out in the room with DS either as he loves bashing things)
I do know some basic signs though so will start doing some with him (milk, food, sorry, please, thankyou, yes, no etc.)
He's very good at pointing so I think he'll enjoy signing. Wish I'd started when he was littler though.

At his age he’ll probably pick up signing fairly easily, I don’t think it matters that you didn’t start sooner. If you are concerned, do try to get a professional assessment. But it really doesn’t sound all that unusual based on other toddlers I’ve seen. The boys do seem to be a little later to start doing lots of talking, I’ve no idea why.
Lots of reading and repetition of stories does seem to be quite important.

Get rid of the dummy if he still has it in the day.

My youngest had speech issues. I wasn't too concerned until he reached two and still wasn't talking much. I found it very difficult to judge what was normal as my eldest spoke very well, very early. At 2 he had some support from a family support worker and began talking more. At 3, he stopped talking completely for a while and then when he did start talking again, began stuttering. He has now been referred for speech and language therapy and is thought to have silent mutism (anxiety about talking) as well as his stutter.

I would say at this age, research as much as you can about ways to help your DC to speak. You can ask the HV to help, even if it is just to check them over and give you some ideas. The first thing I was always asked about was having a dummy in the day though.