GS won't talk.

[Borntobeamum]

He's 2yrs and 2 months.
Bi lingual parents, English being the mother tongue and also in England.
He's very slow to speak and won't try to copy simple words. For example he will pick up a toy car and i will say ?What is it? Its a Car. Car.?
He will smoke and chatter on in total gobble see Guck. He understand everything you say and will do as he's told. ?Can i have the car? ? and he will pass it to me.
He loves being with other children and joins in readily with them. He has excellent eye contact if that helps.
He can read happy and sad expressions. He knows when i am cross.
Any ideas?
At his 2yr assessment they mentioned speech therapy if no improvement but no more contract has been made.
Thanks for listening.

*Smoke? ! Smile!

DS has multiple problems and was very slow with starting to talk and now (at 14) he never stops!! He had very little speech when he started school (and that tended to be repetitive "formula" sentences.

I think that you could just do lots of encouragement at home - the thing that sticks out to me was that the speech therapist was always on to us to give him choices all the time so that he had ot actually reply - so rather than "do you want a drink?" we would ask if he wanted juice or milk, so he had to do more than just nod; or do you want to play x or y.

If you are worried though, maybe you should be pushing for the referral.

He can suck, blow and lick.
I've just given him a crumpet chit up and he's just pointed at each one and said dee dee dee dee ww if he's counting. I really praised him and he did it again. I think he is trying.
When he wants a drink he gross and fetches the juice bottle, he used to just moan and i had to guess.
When i give him something i ask him to say ta,thank you or Merci and he will say ci.
Also when he offers me something,he will say ci to me.
He appears to be very bright and social. He loves big group getogethers of family and will wave and say ?I? (for bye) for ages after we've left.

*chit up = Cut up!
ww =as
gross = Goes

I would have thought it was too early to really tell, especially for a bilingual child. Certainly my dd didn't speak much at that age but now (2.8mo) she uses sentences pretty confidently. My HV said you couldn't really assess speech until 2.5 because it changes so much at this age, so I'm surprised speech therapy has already been mentioned.

I thought they changed the assessments with HV from 2 to 2.5 for this very reason - loads of children can't speak at 2 can at 2.5.

He definately had his check at just 2yrs.
His cousin is 6 weeks younger and talks in 5 and 6 word sentences. I KNOW we shouldn't compare but its human nature. She makes GS look like a baby.
I really appreciate any input. x

You're right, you shouldn't compare. Some children are talking in sentences long before their 2nd birthday. It doesn't really mean anything in the long run.

He could have a problem, but honestly I think it's far to early to say. Is the HV worried? What do his parents think? (Assume you are the grandmother, hope I've got that right!).

Hello Fruit salad.
Yes, I'm nana and look after him 4 days a week. We go to toddler groups and I love having him. His Daddy isn't overly concerned - Very laid back and French! Mummy does worry, but would rather know if there's a problem on the horizon.

As i said, I think we all compare our children to others at some point our another.

He's a living carrying little boywho We all adore. I think he's lazy, and he knows how to twist us around his little finger so why bother talking? x

OMG please accept my apologies for the typos

He's a loving caring little boy!

I can only speak for my own daughter. She's our first and it's definitely possible we anticipated what she wanted a bit much, meaning that grunting and pointing served her well for a long time! But she's talking well now, she just took a bit longer than her peers. Her nursery teachers think she is doing really well, but at your grandson's age she honestly hardly talked at all. She can recite whole books now (toddler books obviously, not war and peace!)

Get his hearing checked. Might be something as simple as glue ear.

Bilingual upbringing does not delay speech (there is quite a bit of research) - but bilingual children sometimes also have speech delay just as monolingual children do. Nothing to do with the 2 languages. (My DD2 is 20 months, grows up trilingual and talking in short sentences).

But really encouraging that your GS shows good understanding. I would push for a Salt assesment too. A Salt will be able to assess much better than a HV. In most areas you can self refer for Salt.

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