Very worried - 2 year old not talking at all

[kyra86]

My DD turned 2 in September, she’s a very independent, cheeky and bubbly little girl. She understands everything we say/ask. However, she is saying absolutely nothing! She started saying words like Mama, Daddy, Bob bob, Peppa at around 16 months but then completely stopped. She has been going to nursery 2 full days a week and they have stated she likes to play alone and sometimes just watches the other children in a corner. She sleeps and eats well, she enjoys spending time with her grandparents/aunties. We try to read with her, do nursery rhymes, drawing etc but she is that typical toddler age where she does become quite distracted!

She’s been seen by an NHS speech therapist but unfortunately the appointment was bang right in the middle of nap time so she was extremely grumpy and uncooperative. They have referred her to paeds and audiology. I’m sure there’s nothing wrong with her hearing.

I’m very worried about potential autism. We’ve seen a private speech therapist who was very helpful but said she is too young to diagnose autism just now.

Has anyone had similar experiences? People keep telling me she’ll talk in her own time, it’s more the no talking and not interacting at nursery that’s worrying me.

Thanks

One very worried mum!

Does she interact outside of nursery? With cousins or kids in the park? At home with visitors? I ask because I wonder if it's selective mutism...but then that would mean she'd speak at home so maybe not. Did she have any illness before she stopped talking? Anything that could have affected her ears?

Yes my son barely said anything at 2.5. Referred to speech therapy. Took months. By the time we got there- he was 3 by then- had come on dramatically. He went from an small number of words to quite fluent in just a few months

Does she babble and speak in made up words or not really make any noise at all?

What you've described is very very common and often these "no talking" kids suddenly start chattering in full sentences at 3 or so and then never stop!
Some children seem to wait until they can talk in full sentences before they will do it.

Regarding the playing on her own- that's really normal too. They often parallel play/ play near each other but not with each other much until 3+

Your daughter sounds lovely. I hope you can not worry so much.

My son didn't talk until he was four and a half.

Albert Einstein never spoke until he was four.

Nothing to worry about, especially at two years of age.

My son is incredibly articulate and bright. You would never think he never spoke until such a late age and he's ten now.

Hmm, so she used to say words? Has that completely stopped? Has there been a lot of changes to her home life recently to make a set back? Definitely keep a note of it all.

Don't panic. Relax. I was in your position 6 months ago with our son. It can be a stressful journey when all around you seem to be reminders of not hitting speech milestones and always comparing to their peers, and trawling old mumsnet threads for answers probably made my anxiety worse when I should just have relaxed and enjoyed time.

We were referred for hearing tests to rule out any issues there (all fine) before paediatric referral could be considered, NHS SALT wait is 2 years long in our area.

Had some private SALT sessions, and some makaton sessions and I know it sounds like a cliche but he did suddenly just start chatting away. Mainly about trains and cars. He's still behind, and does have some autism flags, but then so do both of his parents. His pronunciation is brilliant. Quality rather than quantity

Thank you so much for all your kind replies - I feel so much better reading them.

She definitely babbles and plays with her cousins/visitors at home. She can be quite shy at first but gets used to them eventually.

No illness or significant event in her life that could of caused this/affected her ears. Covid had already started when she was 6 months.

We will keep going with the speech therapy and hopefully she’ll start to turn a corner!

@kyra86

Thank you so much for all your kind replies - I feel so much better reading them.

She definitely babbles and plays with her cousins/visitors at home. She can be quite shy at first but gets used to them eventually.

No illness or significant event in her life that could of caused this/affected her ears. Covid had already started when she was 6 months.

We will keep going with the speech therapy and hopefully she’ll start to turn a corner!

Babbling and playing with her cousins sounds good! She's probably just shy OP and might have a little speech delay....many children do. My advice is to try your best not to worry so you don't remember her toddler years as being a major source of stress. Try to concentrate on the joyful things about her.x

It sounds like the right referrals have been put in place. She might suddenly start talking or if not, the paeds referral has been done. I think it’s a bit more unusual that she did talk but has now stopped.

Does she bring things to you to look at / communicate by pointing etc. how does she get what she wants?

Mine was delayed in other areas and has caught up now but it was worrying at the time. All you can do is celebrate what they are good at and enjoy them as they are once the referrals are in x

No illness or significant event in her life that could of caused this/affected her ears. Covid had already started when she was 6 months.

They don't have to have illness to have glue ear. DC3 has speech delay caused by glue ear, he'd had no significant illness at all. It doesn't mean they can't hear any sounds, it takes out some of the sounds (the consonants, Google high frequency hearing loss) and also it can fluctuate from day to day. DC3 has always appeared to understand, the only reason we got sent for a hearing check so quickly was because his older brother had glue ear. The tests showed he does have glue ear, and 6 months later he's starting to talk it's now very apparent that e.g. he struggles to correctly hear and therefore say the consonants at the start of words.

Glue ear may not be the cause in your case - but it's very common and I wouldn't rule it out yet.

My df81 didn’t speak a word until nearly 4, at least not infront of his family. His first words were “can I have a chocolate biscuit please” which obviously came as a bit of a shock! Went on to be very successful at university and is very bright in general. Not trying to minimise your worries op but it could be something like this.

Sometimes people will comfort rather than validate your feelings as people want to be able to 'fix' or don't feel qualified to comment so make reassuring comments instead I'm talking about in real life not on this thread and if you are worried about your child then these can be unhelpful

I very distinctly remember feeling stupid for worrying about issues with one of my DC because everyone had a story about little Johnny that live up the street who just caught up over night or 'all children do that sometimes'

I think the posters who are saying try to enjoy the toddler years are right -but do that against the backdrop of making sure you are doing everything you can to identify areas where your child might need support and then following that up

I know you are currently, but sometimes the reassurance puts you off following things up -but your gut is telling you something and it's important to listen to it

Developing some language and then stopping IS a red flag for autism so you are right to follow it up. Autism can technically be diagnosed at her age but it is more difficult. Whether or not she has autism you can still support her with help from SALT so well done for looking into that. Good luck.

My 2yo was similar to this and I was very worried about him. Hes now 2 and a half and in the last month he has started talking a lot. It really came out of nowhere, so that can happen.

But, my older DS does have autism and while it is devastating at the time, I just want to say that early intervention made a massive difference to him and he has improved more than I thought possible. So its great that your little one has started slt already at such a young age.

Sounds like my DS - not one single word at 2 years old. No exclamations or animals sounds or approximations either.

About 2 years and 2 months some words came and now at 2 years and 5 months we have lots, 100s. He count, do the ABCs, shapes, colours. He has started making requests and answering basic questions but conversation isn't really there and he's not joining words together. He came so far in a short period of time though!

He's in speech therapy and started nursery around the same time that he started talking. I'm not entirely convinced that was the catalyst though, I think he was just ready.

Nursery also told me he doesn't join in much, which honestly I found strange because he's really interactive with cousins and friends. However, same boat as you really.

I've also been worried about autism but from everything I've read it's very complex and more than just delayed speech and what sounds like shyness at nursery.

My dd didn't speak until she was 3. Not a word. We were told she may have developmental issues and we're booked into an appointment for speech therapy. We didn't take her.

She's now 11, top of her class in everything and very articulate and creative. She's a little eccentric but that's no problem! Actor Mark Rylance didn't speak until he was 5.

@helloisitmeyourelookingfor

I agree with this. Of course enjoy her and her strengths but definitely keep the follow up appts in place x

@Calamityhuman

It sounds like the right referrals have been put in place. She might suddenly start talking or if not, the paeds referral has been done. I think it’s a bit more unusual that she did talk but has now stopped.

Does she bring things to you to look at / communicate by pointing etc. how does she get what she wants?

Mine was delayed in other areas and has caught up now but it was worrying at the time. All you can do is celebrate what they are good at and enjoy them as they are once the referrals are in x

Yeah - if she wants me to wind up a toy for example she’ll bring it to me or brings the remote to me if she wants to watch TV. We’ve started letting her choose her foods so her cereal we will give her a choice and she normally points to which one she wants. If she doesn’t do any of the above she’ll normally just cry/scream and it’s a bit of a guessing game!

Thank you again everyone
I guess we will just have to be patient and see what happens. As people have said, all the right referrals are in place so hopefully she’ll be speaking by the time the appointments happen!

Two with language delays here (one moderate, one severe) and I spent so much time on the mumsnet special needs board that I once got described as "mumsnet royalty" on a webchat with some "expert" who was trying to ignore us all.

re finding joy in her: yes, absolutely, but not because you should assume nothing is going on here. The thing is, if her development is a little bit tilted/uneven then she needs even better/more joyful/and more attentive parenting than the average child.

What neither of my children could do was "shared attention". It means they see something interesting and they try to grab your attention using any tool they have to mean "look mummy can you see it too!". A child who is doing really well may use pointing as part of this. I was interacting with an adorable child on a train the other week and he was basically saying "look there's another train!" to me using eye pointing and pointing. Neither of my children could do that till much older.

You have to find your own way of not being scared. There is a fantastic book called "It Takes Two to Talk" published by Hanen which is the gold standard and is worth every penny (think the cost of a pair of boots). It's completely non-scary and you can leave it on the coffee table. My husband found it really positive and it was the only "resource" he was happy to engage with.

Here you go.

not one single mention of anything scary-sounding I promise - basically it will train you/the other adults to draw the language out.

www.amazon.co.uk/Takes-Two-Talk-Practical-Children/dp/0921145527/ref=asc_df_0921145527/?hvlocphy=1006822&linkCode=df0&hvptwo&psc=1&psc=1&hvnetw=g&hvadid=310973726618&hvpone&hvlocint&th=1&hvpos&hvdev=c&hvdvcmdl&hvqmt&tag=mumsnetforu03-21&hvtargid=pla-418652488078&hvrand=10499482613069784342

If you can afford to pay for some private speech therapy I would - NHS is really stretched and it’s hard to get a good chunk of actual therapy.

We did private speech therapy at 2. The waiting list was too long on the nhs.

It helped massively.

My nephew had almost no speech until he was 2.5 but he’s now 3 and he’s ahead of the milestone now. It suddenly clicked for him and came in a rush. Some children just take their time but there’s nothing wrong.

He has also been referred to an audiologist. He can obviously hear but there is a massive spectrum of hearing disorders and they aren’t always obvious to non-experts. Sometimes quite a subtle hearing difficulty can be the difference between speech and no speech.