Does my son have a speech delay? And how can I help him catch up?

[Tiredallofthetime]

DS is nearly 2. He has around fifty words but he isn’t using sentences yet. He will say bye bye mummy or hello daddy and can say some things like all gone, oh dear.

His understanding is very good but he just doesn’t have language skills as such yet.

I am wondering what I can do to help him develop this skill. And does this count as delayed speech?

Tbh it sounds fine to me. Maybe something to keep an eye on but no more then that. My son is nearly 5 and was only saying the first sound of a few dozen words a year ago and it was only at that point they finally intervened and we have had speech therapy. He was even worse at your son's age and we were told to wait.

Are you due a health visitor appointment soon? Fill in the questionnaire and raise it with them but it is too early to worry I would say.

He's not delayed, he'll get there. Mine was similar but it just happened naturally. Let's reconnect in a year.

My son had a check up by health visitor at aged 2 and she asked me did I realise DS didn’t really say many words. I said I didn’t and was it a problem, he walked at 10 months, could do puzzles easily. She said if he didn’t start talking in 6 months he would be referred. I then noticed he pointed to things he wanted and made a sippy sound if he wanted a drink. Totally our fault, we just got him things. So we made a point of asking what he wanted and to make him say words. Health visitor phoned and asked how he was doing so I put him on the phone to her and they had a conversation.

I'm a SALT and wouldn't be concerned based on what you've said here.

Between 2 and 3 children have a huge jump in their language skills.

What is it that mainly concerns you? Are you comparing him to other children his age for example.

Thanks so much. Yes, the other children I know are putting together three word sentences and have hundreds of words so it’s hard not to worry. I’m fairly confident developmentally there’s nothing wrong, but you do wonder!

I’m not sure about HV - not sure if things have changed but we don’t really see ours.

He's fine :) Much better than my ds at that age, he had maybe 20 words. They sent him for an extra hearing test even though his understanding and instruction follwoing was fine. He suddenly exploded with sentences about 2.5 years, and while he has problems with his rs being ws still, there is no making him shhhh now. He was an early walker, I think they trade off sometimes on these things? I was advised by speech and language (he was under the dysphagia team already) to stop narrating my day to him and instead use simple words and sentences to drive things home.

My son had 5 words at that age!
Wait for the word explosion!

I agree it is hard not to compare and worry BUT what you've described in your first post sounds completely appropriate for his age.

Yes other children may be a bit further with their language development but there will be areas your DS might be quicker to develop than those children.

At 2 I'd be looking for around 50 words and 2 words together as developmental milestones so exactly what you've said!

Well, that’s lovely to hear! My NCT WhatsApp group went a bit mad last night with tales of children saying ‘change channel mummy’ and ‘I feel sick daddy’ and I was a bit worried!

He doesn’t use his own name yet (he responds to it but doesn’t say it) and he doesn’t say me, I, mine (although he does have a funny ‘nigh nigh’ noise which I think it’s an amalgamation of ‘no’ and ‘mine’!)

The main thing is he isn’t behind in any way.

I think my little one is the same. He's a few months off two. Has lots of words only we can understand. Will only use single words. All of his friends at very clear and make sentences. Not sure how to help him really. It's like we've stalled. He says certain words and I haven't heard anything new for months

DS probably didn’t have as many words as that at nearly two.

Less than 18 months on and this morning he told me he didn’t want to watch something on Netflix because it wasn’t appropriate for him 🤨

DD had 5 words at her 2 year check (no, baby, mummy, daddy, yes) . They tested her hearing and monitored her, but she was always just above the threshold for intervention until she started school.

Shes now a rathet quiet reserved 11yo, but absolutely fine. (On the speech ability front at least, she is dyslexic and has some autistic traits)

50 words is loads. And people exagerrate a lot in parenting groups, especially for first borns!)

Mine was about the same at that age. He had a language explosion just after two and went from just naming things to whole sentences within a few weeks - it was crazy!

Sounds completely normal to me. My DD just turned two and her vocabulary is expanding every day but she's only just started putting words together. She says things like "mummy, sit", "daddy cooking" and "bye bye kitty", and just yesterday she said "where's daddy?" which is the first time I've heard her combine two words in a question. She knows to add an 's' to show plurals and to show possession, and seems to maybe know to add 'd' for past tense but it's hit or miss. She refers to herself mostly in third person but sometimes says "me" and "mine" instead.

Nursery seem to think she's doing fine anyway. At this age the most important thing is understanding - if that's good then speech will usually follow.

Yesterday i was watching videos of my son aged 2 1/2. He was still just making lots of noises, no really discernable words. I remember being concerned and a year ago (he was nearly 3) I spoke to a Speech and Language Therapist friend who said to speak to her again after Christmas if still not much in the way of words. He's now nearly 4 and has been speaking complex sentences with no problems at all. I didn't need to speak to my friend again - one day shoetly after he was 3 he just started talking and hasn't stopped since!

Completely average