How much do you actively teach your toddler?

[YellowEllis]

My son is 13mo and is apparently speech delayed. He says hiya and nothing else. He's just learnt how to walk.

I'm just worried that maybe his language isn't quite right because I'm not doing enough. I'm quite quiet around him. I've been trying to chat more and repeat certain stuff words a lot but it's not been long enough to see a difference, and I'm not that great at it.

How much do people actively teach a child? Like just taking the time to try and teach animal noises, or body parts. It just feels weird to me, he crawls off to go practice walking or to go play with something. He doesn't seem interested in me pointing at my nose or roaring. I know I'm making excuses to justify not being hands on enough, and I'm working on it. But just thought I'd ask.

He doesn't sound delayed to me, they all get there in their own time. At 17 months my son didn't say many words - I was not remotely bothered - then he just took off one day. Didn't walk until 18 months either. Now he is 2 and runs around all day confidently walking and talking no-one has ever had a single concern about him, just a normal boy.

HV told me to repeat things I say and anything DD said. We talk about books and whatever is on tv, looking at pictures etc. She would point out things she knew (where's the dog? Well done, that's a dog, dogs say woof) Then that developed into "what noise does the dog make?"

He’s 13MO, how is that speech delayed?

Who says his speech is delayed? My friend's daughter didn't speak until she was 15 months and she turned out just fine.

With little kids it's mostly passive learning, a running commentary about the things you see and do. So, if you read to him, talk about the pictures. If you're out in the country talk about the cows and sheep and pee-ew what's that smell, and in town it's pigeons and the buses and now we're going to go up these steps, let's count them. You may think your brain is about to melt and run out of your ears at the tedium but it's all interesting to him.

He isn't speech delayed at 13 months.

How on earth can they diagnose a speech delay in a 13 month old?!
I have an extremely intelligent, eloquent 6 year old who didn’t say a single word until 20 months. Within weeks she was talking in full sentences.
DD2 only said ‘cake’ until around 18 months. Now a 5 year old who chats my ear off all day.
DS is 18 months and has about 6 clear words. I’m assuming that like his sisters he will talk properly soon.

That’s not speech delayed! I didn’t do active teaching; we did lots of playing and talking; pointing at things and naming them when we were out, counting stairs going up and down. Not all the time but a lot of the talking just became normal from my end.

DS is/was considered speech delayed at his 18 month and 2 yr check ups. He's definitely improved since but don't know whether he'd still be classed as such.

We actively teach him colours, animals, vehicles... anything that might help him. He loves to tell me about the buses he sees when we're out, but it still took a while with colours etc. He's 3 in November.

I found it really hard talking to him as a baby, right up until he was just about 2. I've had to really push myself, with the help of parents and my nan, to talk at/to him so he learns words.

Its tough. But now he doesn't shut up

Mine said nothing at 18 months just gibberish and sounds. I had a panic based on some nasty comments and performance parenting at a group, (silly but DC was my first) ended up seeing a speech therapist who was very kind and reassuring, but basically said I was being a PFB and DC was fine.
Don't worry. They all level out at different rates. Mines just starting school and I constantly get comments on how excellent her vocabulary is 🙄
Also shove some 'Yaka Dee' from CBeebies on, that worked in mine 😂

Oh and no one at any point expressed any concern about my children’s speech, let alone diagnosed them with a speech delay!
The reason the 2 year check is now done slightly later at around 2 years 3 months is because at 2 they were seeing many toddlers with little to no speech, referring them to SALT then finding by the time they had an appointment they were talking away!

Sounds a normal amount of speech for that age, who thinks he is delayed?

The majority of the 13 month olds I know have no words. They aren’t speech delayed.

Mine is not quite 12 months and has none, just some noises that she uses to communicate with eg she has particular noises when she sees the cats or food.

I try to talk to her a lot but I’m not making any particular efforts to teach her. I just encourage her when she tries.

She understands plenty though.

She’s only just crawling and no signs of walking. All normal!

Doesn’t sound delayed, sounds within the normal range to me. I found at that age that my DD would really intensely focus on one skill that she was developing to the exclusion of everything else and make big progress on that, and then move onto something else a month later or so. Health visitor said this was quite normal. So maybe speech is just not a big priority for your little one at the moment? Sounds like he has good gross motor (crawls and walks), is fine motor also good? How is receptive language e.g. can he point to the dog if asked?

He sounds quite advanced to me! DS is 12 months and a confident crawling/cruiser but not near walking yet and although he chats away constantly, he doesn't have any words in context. Nobody has suggested he's delayed at all. I agree that it sounds like he might be more focused on moving around than talking at the moment.

He doesn't sound delayed to me. Mine barely said more than that at 28 months and then suddenly started talking away.

But it's a good idea to just chat at them about things. Narrate what you're doing when you're together. 'Mummy will get the breakfast now, what shall we have for breakfast? Aww some nice cereal here! Shall we get you in your highchair?' Etc etc. As if you're expecting a response even though you might not get it for some many months 😅

Mine didn't say a thing or walk at 13mo.

I'd just carry on interacting with him, chatting, reading, singing songs, playing etc. He sounds like he's doing fine.

Mine is nearly 17m and has 1 word and a few other sounds which could be words. The word is new. At 13m she definitely had no words, and neither did most of her peers (I’d say one of the NCT babies out of 9 said a recognisable word at that point). I was getting worried around 15m and spoke to a HV who wasn’t concerned at all and said to wait to the 2year review before worrying.

My son is 19months and only says mama and dada and lots of noises. He is very quiet and in no hurry to chat.

13m is absolutely not delayed!

You don't need to actively teach them.

His speech development sounds age appropriate

:)

He may or may not be delayed but chatting to/singing to/reading to small children and babies is super important for developing their speech, language and listening skills. Not 'teaching' them in any formal way, but making sure they are immersed in a world of sound and language and have things to listen to and respond to.

I know it can feel odd to have a one sided convo with someone little who doesn't hold up their side of the conversation but it really will make a difference long term.

I have never actively taught our toddler anything (other than safety stuff like getting up and down the stairs) - and I’m a primary school teacher!

Instead, at weekends and school holidays I chat to her a lot, just like ‘now mummy’s going to put the dishwasher on, do you want to press the button’, read to her every night and whenever else she’ll allow me to and....let her watch some (sadly a fair bit when I was teaching from home during lockdown) of CBeebies for my own sanity!

My in laws, who have her while I work, do much the same but also play a lot of games/do puzzles/sing nursery rhymes. She’s a chatterbox at 20 months but certainly wasn’t at 13!

She randomly counted the stairs to ten the other day and I swear she picked that up by osmosis because none of us have ever taught her!

My point is, that even as someone who works in education I don’t think you need to be worried at this stage, or feel like you should be providing a full pre school type education. What we say to all our parents is that books are the key. Read as much as possible and the rest should fall into place.

My friend just told me that at her child's 12 month check, they were concerned about his problem solving skills because he couldn't put objects into a bottle top, thread Cheerios on to a shoe lace and he only had a couple of words .

I was pretty quiet around my first too. Babies do learn from you naturally - you need to talk more. Someone told me a trick is just describe to them what you are doing, smile a lot and maintain eye contact - but it's not teaching them as such. So for example you are changing his nappy: "ok 'baby's name' time to change your nappy! Let's lie you down here, I'll grab some wipes and let's hope you don't pee on me! Off with the old - yep it was definitely time for a change! A nice wipe, on with the new - stop wriggling you squirm-bug! Now does that feel good? Nice and clean and ready to go!" You get the idea. You do the same when getting his meals ready or picking up his toys - soon it will come naturally and I'm sure your baby will be talking more when he's ready.

None of my four spoke before the age of 2 and I’m an early years teacher with a linguistics degree

I agree with others that he doesnt sound speech delayed. However if you want to help him communicate, have a look at makaton or baby sign. I did it with my daughter and it's very little effort (no need to sit down and teach them, just do the signs whenever you say the related word) and she picked it up pretty quickly.