30 month old late talker?

[lynnesg]

My DD is 30 months old and is, at least unofficially, a late talker. I really took notice around Christmas when out shopping and the other kids her age were asking questions and talking in full sentences, where my LO was just putting together a few sentences by then. I know that kids can be ''late talkers/bloomers'' but aren't girls and first borns usually quicker at the whole talking thing? I hate to compare her to other children, but it is so obvious she is behind. I stay at home and talk to her all day, ask questions, show her things, read, listen to songs, but to no avail. She is making progress, but painfully slow. She has just now starting asking ''where'' and ''what's that' related questions. She also doesn't really use pronouns, apart from ''I''. She has a pediatric appt. tommorow and I am going to ask for a referral to a SLP, since I refuse to take to ''wait and see'' approach. She is also starting preschool in a month which I am hoping will help. Any of you ladies have late talkers that experienced a language expolosion? When? Did your child need speech therapy? Any advice would be much appreciated! Thanks!

[lynnesg]

Really, no one?

[olien]

Really cant help, but I just had a discussion with my Mom along these lines. She said my brother didn't really speak until he was around 3 or 3.5. Then it was like an explosion of words. Maybe she is just not ready yet.

[AFWife]

Originally Posted by olien 

Really cant help, but I just had a discussion with my Mom along these lines. She said my brother didn't really speak until he was around 3 or 3.5. Then it was like an explosion of words. Maybe she is just not ready yet.

This sounds like my brother and, now, my son. With both it's like it's just a lack of caring about words. Is she physically advanced by chance?

[lynnesg]

Originally Posted by AFWife 

This sounds like my brother and, now, my son. With both it's like it's just a lack of caring about words. Is she physically advanced by chance?

No, she's not very physically advanced, walked, crawled, all at average times. She understands everything we say to her, but no matter how hard I try, the talking isn't coming along very well.
 

[JBaxter]

DS3 was a late talker.    He did not have the 50 words at his 2 yr check up so we did Early Intervention  from about 26 months.   EI stops at age 3 and it gets handed over to the school system.    EI was great they came to the house weekly to work with him.  They did a global evaluation on him.   I can speak highly enough of the services we got.   

Curious... did you ped not ask about her speech at your 2yr check?

[JudiAU]

My nephew had delayed language. My mother (Masters in Special Ed) really encouraged my SIL to do EI and she wouldn't. He didn't have any real words until after 3 and didn't real develop any grammer until his younger brother started speaking in sentances. His language skills where very poor when he started kindergarten and were a real issue for many years. He was in a small private school and they real didn't have the resources to help him and they didn't refer him to the public school for assistance. He was also physically big and the combination was really poor for his self esteem. He got picked on a lot.

I'd encourage your to get your LO evaluated and accept whatever help.

[lynnesg]

I have twice asked the ped. if he thought she was behind and both times he gave me the brush off saying she was just really shy and that he felt she was doing fine. So when I go in tommorow, I requested a different pediatrician and I am going to get the referral; I refuse to accept the ''she's fine'' bit.

[ElliesMomma]

 if you have concerns, then get her evaluated. i think most public school districts have a 0-3 yo program that is free for evaluation.

Edited by ElliesMomma - 5/28/11 at 10:22pm

[pbjmama]

You don't need a ped to get an evaluation. Call the school district and ask for early intervention, special services, they will know what you mean.

[Peony]

You can just call EI yourself, since he is under 3 it is still EI and not through the school district yet where it gets tricker without referrals. All 3 of my kids have lagged in speech. The first two were considered at the very tail end of normal, there was a bit of a problem but not enough to qualify for EI. Here the child has be operating at a 25% deficient before they can get services. DS will be 2 next month and has been receiving speech therapy since Dec since he is delayed enough to get services. He still only has 1 word but he is at least trying to make more sounds. 

[sarahmsquared]

Actually I don't think you'll get too far with EI, based on our experience. DS is a late talker. At his second birthday he had zero words, although he and I communicated fairly well. We had him evaluated both privately and through public EI services and got very different results. Privately we were told that he was in the "less than 1st percentile" for both receptive and expressive language. The other evaluation didn't take place for a couple of months and by then he was up to maybe 25 words (most of which were colors) at 28 months and they said that while he was behind but not significantly. He only qualified through them because he didnt say two word phrases at all. Apparently they have to be more than three months delayed on something before they can get services. I could be interpreting your post incorrectly but it sounds like she won't be far enough "behind" to me.

Anyway, that's just what happened with us. I was much closer to the "wait and see" mindset but we did go ahead and try therapy because we didn't see any reason not to. It doesn't hurt him to play with the therapist for a little while every week. I don't honestly think it has helped that much -- he has made some progress in the last seven months, but not more than I would expected without therapy. Although it looks like we might be in for a big burst of new words/phrases so that's exciting.
Edited by sarahmsquared - 3/29/11 at 10:17pm

[oaktreemama]

We have had a wonderful experience with EI. For us it was to ensure DS did not fall behind socially/verbally because he has some gross and fine motor issues. The county sent him once a month (that was plenty for us but you may get more visits) and he not only watched to ensure ds was where he needed to be but gave us a lot of hands on examples of what we could do in our day to day living.

[babygirlie]

23 months and 0 words. Got evaluated by EI and she is on the spectrum. She has the communication skills of a 3 month old. If you child is pointing and expressing himself in other ways I wouldn't worry too much. You can always get evaluated.You have primal rewards like food. So when you offer him some food you can say eat and do the sign language but keep the words very simple and no sentences is what I am being taught. If they can't say a word then work on the first sound of the word and then reward them with some small treat like a lick of something.. not enough to ruin their diet if they like say ice cream or to fill them up.

[Latonya]

This forum really helps me alot. My son is 27 months old and he too is a late talker. I have exhausted myself by pointing to everything in sight and talking to him all day. He is so energetic and friendly, yet he wont even let me know that he wants juice!!! I am waiting for this "explosing" to happen. He is seeing someone who is helping him with his speech. Sometimes I wonder if I am just worrying too much. My husband seems to think so.

[lynnesg]

Had our appt. today with the speech pathologists and DD tested at the 30-33 month level across the board, which was so surprising to me. Speech is typical for a 2.5 year old. The SLP explained that toddlers her age repeat or ''parrot'' back things that they don't know or don't have the answer to. I am soooooo relieved!

[SeekingSerenity]

My Lil' Man will be 3 in July and is only just now starting to talk. He has been communicating just fine - he understands commands and can respond with pointing and noises, but until he started daycare, he just didn't use words. Now in just a few weeks, he's up to using several words strung together in sentences. His doctor, at his last checkup, was acting very concerned that he was "speech delayed," but honestly I was not worried because he DOES communicate. Just not verbally. I had another child who did this (who's now 13) and so I tried to explain to the doctor that Lil' Man was fine, and didn't need evaluation. She agreed to wait for three months to check him again - and I'm glad he's started talking now. I figured once he was around other children his age he would open up more, and he did.

[Belia]

My little guy only had 16-20 words by age 2, when I think the "standard" is 50 words by age 2, so we got a referral to EI.  But the first thing we did was a hearing evaluation by a pediatric audiologist.  It turned out that he had lost approx 50% of his hearing!  He had the tubes put in, and that's another long-ish story, but there was a physical / medical reason for the delay.

By all means go forward with EI, but get his hearing tested as well.  If we hadn't done that we would have been treating the symptoms but not the disease, KWIM?

[lynnesg]

I also told the SLPs that I had enrolled her in preschool which is set to start next month and they all thought that was the best thing to do for kids her age.

[indigosky]

My firstborn, also a girl, was also a very late talker -- although it sounds like yours is way ahead of mine! Mine said "mama" and "dada" at 23 months, and started using 2-3 word phrases at 26-27 months. Now (3 years, 4 months) she chatters nonstop all day long. No one would EVER guess that she got a late start.

My understanding is that receptive language is really a far more important indicator of problems. If your child understands what's being said, the speech will kick in on its own.