Delayed speech for 18month old

[Tearoomsandbuns]

Hi,

DD is about to turn 18 months, i just saw something that at that age she should have about 20-50 words. DD does babble a lot but not many consistent words so feeling a bit worried. Ive racked my brain to think of words she has said and come up with about 16 though these aren't really consistent. Does this seem normal? She was late walking only starting in the last month. My other child was quite further developed at this age in comparison. The words she has said are;
Mama
Dada
Bye bye
Night night
Up
Beep
Baby
Roar
Tata
Open
Moo
Shoe
Ball
Ah oh
Boo
Fish

Would you wait and see or speak to HV now about referring to SALT?

My daughter had 3 words at that age and only ever 3 words. Every time she gained a word she lost a word. We had an assessment at 20 months by a member of the HV team. She did ok on the 12-18 months assessment but scored 0 on the 18-24 month assessment. Do slightly behind. We were due to move so we didn't get a salt referral but we were given some advice on how yo reinforce language. This helped her start to build a vocabulary. By 24 months she had 10-12 words and by the time she had her 2 year assessment in our new town at 26months her vocabulary had improved so much and now had 2 and 3 word sentences.
I wouldn't be overly worried but would probably reach out to the HV for a language assessment and advice.

I think the 20-50 words milestone was a bit ambitious (some 18 months olds definitely will, but quite a lot definitely won't!). How is her understanding of what you say, and does she use gestures liking pointing and waving?

From the questionnaires the health visitors use, the 'communication' questions for 18 months are:

• Does she point to something she wants?
• Can she go into another room to get a familiar object, e.g., 'Go get your teddy'?
• Does she have 8 or more words in addition to Mama and Dada?
• Can she imitate a two word phrase like 'Mama eat' or 'Go home'?
• Can she point to the correct picture when asked 'Where's the kitty?' or similar? (only needs to know one picture)
• Does she say 2 or 3 words that represent different ideas like 'See dog'? (something like 'all gone' or 'uh-oh' doesn't count because it's one idea)

If you can say 'yes' to three of those and 'sometimes' to one (one 'yes' is worth two 'sometimes'), then she would score in the white 'development appears on track' region.

Even if she's a little below that, you probably don't need to worry – 'typical' development is a huge range at this age. If you can say 'yes' to one question and 'yes' or 'sometimes' to one more then she's already in the grey scoring region, where they'd generally monitor and suggest some activities, but in most cases it's nothing serious, just a reflection of individual development that will all even out.