How much can your 16 month old say?

[eefs]

DS2 was born with a cleft palate and had an operation to fix it at 8 months. The op was a great success, with DS2, previously a very picky eater, developing a huge appetite and really thriving. He was walking at 10 months and can now do simple jigsaws etc so I don't have any worries about his motor skills. The only hangover I still have is his speech. I was told he would need a lot of speech therapy and possibly (although unlikely) another operation down the line if he was having big problems with his speech.
I know he'll learn at some stage and he is still so young but I am curious about how far "behind" he is at the moment. He doesn't have any words and only babbles with one sound "ah". It's very cute, he can put so much expression into that one little sound, but I know he should be making a range of different noises by now.
What could your child say at this age?

Not much more than 'mama',' dada' and 'no' . Incidentally, our gp practise doen't check speech till 3 and a half years, because there is such a wide age range when they start. Not that I have any direct experience, but you may be looking for signs of a potential 'problem' a bit prematurely.

Sounds a lovely little boy and I'm pleased for you that his op has been a success.

Mine was even struggling with Mama at 16 months, and only had a couple of other words, and there was nothing wrong with her mouth. She just couldn't be bothered to learn when "ahh ahh aaaarrrrghhhhhhhh" and grasping at things worked just as well

eefs, ds is considered at nursery to be an excellent and above average talker, but even he at 16 months could only say 4 or 5 words, and most of them only we could understand. He could communicate very well though - mostly using ah with different expressions, movements, gesticulations etc. So it sounds like your ds is doing fine.

Mine is 14 months and says a few recognisable words - though not fully formed. Quite alot actually: keys, teddy, Nanna (banana), bubba (bubble), mamma, dadda, dogdog, peas (please), Oh deear (very funny everytime drops something), and shamefully oh sht (oh sh*t?? hope not, darn Grannies)

She is subjected to Radio 4 from morning til night so maybe that helps.

these are all fairly clear.

However, she can't walk so is obviously putting all energy into talking instead.

ds2 is 16 months (Dec 2 birthday) and has very few words, none clear. He says 'hiya'; 'bye bye', 'quack' in context, and that's about it. He has a universal word 'bu-da' that seems to mean just about anything (of course we get very excited when he says it pointing to a bird or a button!) He communicates a LOT though, and vocalises just about all the time. He has various consonant sounds - ba, da, ma the most frequent. I would say he's slightly behind ds1 at this age but certainly within normal limits. Of course I'll be delighted when he starts saying some proper words, but I'm sure he is developing normally.
And NO WAY can he do a jigsaw puzzle - I don't think his spatial skills are particularly great!

Thanks, I'm not worried, just curious really. It's been taken as a given that he will need speech therapy so I'll see what they say I suppose. DS1 was slow to talk so ds2 is probably just taking after him, but I remember DS1 babbling and making lots of different (meaningless) noises whereas DS1 really justs says "ah".
SkiBF - your little DD sounds brilliant.
Elliot - DS2 is only a day younger that yours :-) Isn't this a lovely age.