3 year old speech delay

[mumofatoddlerhelp]

My ds who is 3 is constantly talking jibberish with the odd word thrown in, he has around 20 words. Is this how they start to talk as toddlers with jibberish? Can I expect speech soon?

At 3 I would say it's not usual to still be talking gibberish - they should be using short sentences although not necessarily all easily understood by strangers. Pronunciation errors normal, wrong tense of certain words normal. There is a huge range of normal but I think at 3 I would be seeing help from the Health Visitor to see if a referral to speech therapy is required

@TheBeeb thank you for your response. He's been referred to SaLT at age 2 and has seen someone and we are still on the waitlist for more help. I'm aware it's not normal for his age, I'm just not sure how long the jibberish lasts

Hi op, I have had a lot of support from the speech charity ICan. They are amazing and have a helpline you can call and speak to their incredibly kind and knowledgeable speech therapist John.

Have you heard of the Hanen book - More than Words op? We found this really helpful. Lots of practical advise which helps with speech delays.

Also has there been a hearing check? Hearing loss at this age due to eg glue ear can be very non obvious. We were convinced ds wasn’t deaf but he was

To answer your question we had parts of words come that we ultimately realised were words eg ‘Ah’ was ball.

@mumofatoddlerhelp Hi there!
I think gibberish is a good sign the talking/language is coming along. My son does this when he wakes up in the morning (has a little gibberish conversation with himself). He is 2.5 and currently being assessed for speech delay. I’m pretty sure he does have a delay but he’s making progress so I’m not too worried. I think you’ll start to hear the odd recognisable word thrown in here and there. Not sure how long it lasts I am sorry but just a wanted to show support.

Hi I need some advice my youngest boy will be 2 in July and only has 2 or 3 words that he says and the rest Is gibberish he just won't seem to talk and me and my husband has tried everything we can think of to get him to talk but he's just being so stubborn I need help

If you can afford a private SALT it’s worth looking into although they also have long lists in some areas. The nhs provision is inadequate in most places.

He will get there but quicker with intervention and there may be an underlying issue. For dd it was Developmental Language Disorder (DLD). Of course, it may just be a speech delay as well.

You need assessment urgently to start a programme
You need to assess if is a speech disorder like apraxia which needs very specific therapy
Get a private assessment to speed it up

@YourLilacHelper Hello some update?