Nearly 2, socially engaged but no words yet, anyone been through this?

[Lollypopin]

Just looking for some advice/reassurance from anyone who’s been through similar ❤️

My little boy is almost 2. He’s really social, lovely, affectionate and engaging. He initiates interaction, loves people, understands lots, and all his other development seems on track.

But he still doesn’t say any words at all — not even consistent animal noises or play sounds. He’s had his hearing checked and that was all fine.

We’ve seen speech therapy and AAC was suggested, but there’s no regular therapy at the moment. We’ve also been consistently using all the strategies the speech therapist suggested for over 6 months now.

Since he was born we’ve constantly read to him, sung to him, talked to him, engaged with him, played with him, and taken him to groups/classes, so I don’t feel like it’s a lack of interaction or stimulation.

He’s also been using signs since around 9–10 months old. Very occasionally he’ll do an animal noise or sound once, and then not do it again for months. Sometimes it honestly feels more like regression than progress, which is what worries me.

Everyone keeps telling me to “wait and see” but I just have this feeling that it’s more than just being a late talker.

I think what confuses me is that he’s so connected socially and seems bright in every other way.

Would really appreciate hearing from parents whose children were similar around this age. Did speech come later? Was there eventually a diagnosis or was it just a speech delay? Did anything help?

A close NCT friend's child was exactly like this - really happy, interacting non-verbally, pointing at what he wanted but no words at all at 2. By 2.5 he had a handful of words and now at 3 he is speaking in short sentences and much more on track now! They never did any speech & language intervention, it just naturally came later for him.

i have three children and I’d put money on all three being autistic, only the eldest (7) is diagnosed and the middle (4) is awaiting assessment. The middle had words at 2 but not that many and was prone to dropping them, he was always on an upwards trajectory but the gradient changed sometimes, he’s come on leaps and bounds this last year but he’s so unclear now, I think he missed out on that baby babble into toddler-ese and is running without having ever walked much.

my youngest has the opposite and can talk a freaky amount, she’s only just 2 but is asking not that simple questions (like why that like that….?), she’s probably had the least book reading tbh. Eldest was slow to start but exploded at 2.

They are ALL highly social and clever in different aspects but struggle with some things more than average. They got the type of autism that people done really notice or believe unless you live with us for a bit or know what to look for.

Did he babble or say any noise at all before this? Did he get frustrated when he had something he wanted to say but couldn’t?

Will he share attention with you ? Will he look at what you look at ? Will he try to get you to look at what he is looking at ? Will he react to strangers by looking to you ? Shared attention is the precursor to communication so it’s important to assess this

Yes he’s done this always…