Question if your child wasn't talking at 2

[dogmum00]

My son has just turned 2 and has no words other than no and mum. He babbles a lot and makes a lot of random noises. He says stuff repeatedly but I don't know what he means such as go and og. If your child didn't speak at 2 what kind of noises did they make and when did words start coming?

Mine had 3 words just after their second birthday, every time they learned a new word an old word fell away so they only had three words. However, by the time they were 30 months old words were coming thick and fast and they had begun to put two words together, e.g. "all gone". At around two they had speech like sounds but they were meaningless sounds, their babble did have the intonations of speech though and their receptive language was far ahead of their expressive language.

Have you had his hearing tested? - if he has glue ear it can affect speech. Don’t let them for you off. It’s easy to test for and the solution is a small operation to put grommits in.
My son had delayed speech - because he couldn’t hear anything!

My DC2 wasn't talking at 2 and unfortunately my HV wasn't very helpful.

If I was in this situation again I'd do this SLT progress checker and see if that says if they need extra support. If they so, ask your GP/HV to refer to SLT and a hearing test. The Speech Therapist will want them to have had a hearing test before they see them.

The lack of speech could be something like glue ear but I think it's worth doing the MChat Test as well as the above SLT progress checker.

Mine had no words or babbling at one. Half a dozen 'sounds' at 2. So the first sound of a few words. He is 5 in February. Been under SALT for nearly a year. We did a few weeks of intensive private speech therapy before starting school too. Hes now doing 3-4word sentences, still quite difficult to understand though. Hes having an assessment with early support to see if anything is underlying. School has really been good for him and he loves it.

I think you’re overly stressing Op- babbling is talking. I wouldn’t stress until 2.5- assuming he responds to noise ok

My DC had 35 words at 2, so not as few as you describe but far less than average. Pretty confident he just started chatting one day and by 3 he was exactly on a par with his friends.

My DS sounds similar to yours at that age. I was pretty relaxed as he seemed to understand what we were saying to him. Now aged 13 he is perfectly articulate!

Also try eye test. Ds had no words at 2. He had eye test at hospital due to parents lazy eye and it turned out he had very poor eyesight .
He was unable to clearly see lip movement etc which babies copy when learning to talk.

We never noticed how bad his eyesight was as he never bumped into anything or tripped etc. But the hospital said because he knew no different and his world had always been blurry, he just coped.

Once he had glasses, his speech developed quickly.

I used the progress checker @PritiPatelsMaker linked, and it told me to talk to my HV, who sent me to the GP, who eventually sent me to audiology who diagnosed glue ear. 1.5 years later DC3 has just had grommits fitted. With wait lists as they are now, it's better to start getting on them sooner rather than later!

With glue ear, it's not as simple as whether they appear to understand you or not. It's partial, not complete hearing loss. It generally makes it hard for them to distinguish between consonants, particularly when there is a lot of background noise. The level of hearing loss it causes also fluctuates depending on e.g. how recently they have had a cold, which makes it particularly hard for them to work out how to talk as what they hear changes. DC3 always showed good understanding - but had delayed speech with badly mangled pronunciation.

My ds didn't really make noises apart from chuckling. He would run around pointing and giggling but didn't try to form words. At 2 years I asked for help from the GP, who said he'd put him on the list but not to worry for another 3 or 4 months.

At 25 months ds pointed and said 'key' meaning car key. From then it was a new word every day and by 30 months he was chatting away in whole sentences. It was as if he had decided not to talk until he knew all the words.

We had a good drop in SLT service when my dc were that age. We popped along for an assessment once and they were able to reassure me that ds was within the normal range for speech. Check if you have one.

Dd spoke maybe 5 words at 3. By 3.5 i could not shut her up

My son couldn't speak at two. I was so scared there was something wrong with him I just buried my head in the sand and didn't seek any help. A month after his second birthday his sister was born and he started to talk, mainly to say he wanted me to do things while I was looking after the baby.

Dd2 had no words at 2. Began with “yah”, “nah” and “brrrrrrr” (cold) at 2.1 month, then by 2.4 began to snowball.

She’s 3 in less than a month, and still has trouble pronouncing her starting sounds (dake for snake, daughter for water etc), but can otherwise make fairly complex sentences. When i put her to bed tonight she told me “i did hand prints at nursery to make witch. I did green and black and purple. Purple is my favourite colour.”

i think i was always aware language was coming, she was just on her own timetable, because she clearly understood everything even at 2. She just waited until she was confident to start. If she hadn’t been responding or clearly understanding i’d have done more to investigate hearing/possible other causes.

Cannot remember with my children but my Grandchild was only say a few words at two and didn’t really say a proper sentence until 2.5 . By 2.10 now speaking non stop and pronunciation has really improved in the last few weeks.

Mine had 12 words at 3, which was when they were referred for SLT by the preschool. The SLT was very helpful, she had individual sessions and group sessions. By 4 she had made a lot of progress. She still struggles with sounds and took longer to read than expected. Her spelling is terrible. I think she has dyslexia.

One of my twins didn't speak until 2.5 and then it was babbled words. By the time he was 3.5 he had a huge, clear vocabulary and at 5 now you'd think he was 15 with his words and what he knows and can pronounce. They all get there in the end

My son couldn't talk at this age either. I was concerned but due to Covid at the time there was not much in the way of help.

Two months before his 3rd birthday the words just came. We did read lots of books, especially before bed.

He's now five and talks very well.

S2 made a lot of sounds but was largely incomprehensible at 3 - I remember telling the Tumble Tots leader I was a bit apprehensive of him moving up to the parent-free class because of this.

The school nursery got him going to the speech therapist (this was back in the days of Spend Spend Spend when places actually had a speech therapist and they hadn't all gone on long-term sick) whose initial assessment agreed with mine - great sentence structure, fantastic vocabulary, can't understand a word . They played Pop-Up Pirate and a couple of other things to work on consonants.

By the time he was leaving Reception the Early Years Lead said to me "oh yes, I'd forgotten he had those sessions"!

I still have no idea why. Too much tv at nine months old? Who knows. I'd strongly recommend you push for speech therapy if at all possible.

My son wasn't really saying anything much at age 2. I started to get worried as he was nearing 3 and barely saying anything recognisable. However when he turned 3 he started talking in complete sentences.
I think he knew the words but couldn't be bothered with odd words or baby talk and was saving them up till he could use them in complete sentences.

Apparently my DSis didn't utter a single word until she was 2.5 - and I started school! Seems she had a huge vocabulary but didn't need to speak because her bossy big sister did it for her...

My dd wasn't talking at 2 , 6m later she was talking in sentences.
My ds wasn't talking at 2 and he was referred to salt and from there asd pathway. (Obviously more indicators than just speech)

I would speak to hv and request a salt referral there's probably a wait list so I'd get on it now and best case scenario dc starts talking and you take their name off.

At his 2 year HV check, ds had fewer than 10 words. By the time he was 2.5 he was chatting away happily, and told his nursery nurse that I was having another baby but wasn't very well. He was right, but we hadn't told him! He'd bet listening closely.

By age 2 my DD only said a few words eg. more, baby, book etc but she clearly understood and could carry out two step instructions like "go over there and pick up the yellow ball, give it to Dad and then bring me a book." She was apparently completely silent at playgroup. They were worried and thought we needed to see Speech Therapy.

A couple of months later she started talking in full sentences but mispronounced words, randomly used wrong word. DD now 9 and diagnosed last year as dyslexic. She's also just more reserved than some kids.

My youngest wasn’t talking at all coming up to 2 and I was really worried. I kept going to the health visitor and they said that they wouldn’t do anything until she was 2 and that the average 2 year old should have about 50 words. I went back at the time she turned 2 and had about 5, I was told I had to wait for her 2 year check which didn’t happen for another 3 months. By then her speech had really started to improve so they said to wait and see how she got on.

Just before she turned 4 I asked for a referral to check her hearing and she did have reduced hearing at some frequencies probably due to glue ear. They did a follow up just over a year later and her hearing was fine. She never bloody shuts up these days!