twins and talking

[Ingwer]

My boys are now 18 mos old and still not talking. just the occasional mama, or dada. They do a lot of grunting, 'ehing', pointing to communicate. I know one problem might be that we don't get out a lot. So they don't spend much time at all with other kids where who they might need to clearly verbally communicate with. This going to change starting in April when we start a playgroup and tumbling class.
I heard normally twins are late talkers because they create their own (non)verbal communication.
Has this been other's experience as well? When did your twins start talking? What did you do to help them?

Thanks!

Jenny

[charmarty]

My girls didnt really start talking until thier 2nd birthday.Thye would sya the odd word,but one day they just seemed to wake up talking!

[oncewerewise]

Just one baby, so sorry to interrupt, but she just turned 18 months and only says "up" and "mama". My oldest didn't really talk till she was 3. Einstein didn't talk till he was 4. Anyway, I just wanted to pipe up that I wouldn't worry about it.

Peace.

[mom3]

My oldest son was just over 2 before he really started talking. Who knows when my twins will talk. If you are having trouble figuring out what they want now and they or you are getting frustrated, talking to them as much as you can and trying to verbalize for them can help. You can be sure that once they reach a point where the "point and grunt" doesn't get them what they want fast enough they will start talking (and possibly never stop ).

[laralou]

Is anyone doing the MIT study on twins and talking?

[Ingwer]

thank you mamas for your responses! this really puts me at ease, because it seems as though the little ones i know have been talking since around 12 mos.
mom3, i will definitely start verbalizing for them. i think i should say words more slowly and clearly for them, i really don't sound things out at all now.
i've heard that once twins start talking it's not always as clear, or later, as grammatically correct as singletons since they repeat each other's speech mistakes. anybody know about this?

[Cakes]

I have 18 mos twins B/G The girl started talking at 12mos. !!! My son is just begining to say mama and byebye. He mostly gestures and directs me to what he wants.
Julianne

[amnesiac]

My boys participated in the MIT study several years ago. They did the part on past tense verb usage. And they did the one at Rutgers a few mos ago evaluating pre/perinatal factors.

There's a sort of developmental spurt that is expected to occur in expressive language development between 18 mos & 2 years.
http://www.state.il.us/agency/dhs/ea...rentlwicd.html

[seanjoshmom]

My twins just turned two. they have been talking (though not understandable to anyone who didn't care for them regularly) for about 8 months. However, they, as amnesiac said, did not take off until recently, trying to put together sentences (though with incorrect tense or plurals, etc). I think your plans are great. I have read that you should say things correctly (proper grammar) for them, and I try to do that, though the way they pronounce things is so cute I can't resist sometimes. Also, I repeat their sentences or requests in proper grammar, or with proper pronunciation, to help. like if they say "Want see LaLa Po on a puter", I say "You want to see La La and Po on the computer? OK, that's a good idea" or "Hey, OK, let's go see LaLa and Po on the computer!" or something like that. One of my sons doesn't speak as much or as clearly as the other. And he hesitates (?feeling self-conscious?) if I ask him to repeat what he said so i can figure it out and respond appropriately. Does anyone else have suggestions on the best/most sensitive way to handle this?

[latinmom]

My boys said very little until 18 months,and then went nuts! By 2, we had sentences, tenses, etc. Keep talking to them a lot, and it should come. Activities will help-even more language to hear!

[Mallory]

Slightly off topic about twins and one having more speech problems than the other.

I used to teach at a small private school and we had two sets of twin students and set of twins that both taught at our school. One of the sets was in the preschool and one was much harder to understand than the other. His mom told us that often the baby that was on the bottom inutero has the biggest difficulties with speech. And for the very small population at our school, all of the babes that had been on the bottom had had speech therapy!

Just wondering if that is the same here? I also don't know if it makes a difference if it is a boy/girl set I haven't actually read the study,and all 3 at our school were fraternal boy/boy twins.

[latinmom]

Mallory-Interesting idea about the bottom twin. In my guys, the bottom one is the most advanced, in everything! Maybe we are the exception that proves the rule?
Or is he just trying to get the better of his brother, who is bigger and always wins the tussles by default! Hmmmm.......

[CheriK]

New to the Mothering boards (kept meaning to join, but didn't get motivated until this forum started!). I have 15 month old boy/girl twins. They are using just a few words inconsistently, but we have been using some sign language since they were around 10 months old. They may sometimes say a word, but don't always repeat it (example - both use some version of "kitty", but won't say it when we point to the kitty, just randomly when they feel like it). They do use signs more frequently - hi/bye, hungry, thirsty, nurse are favorites.

Cheri

[cami2u2]

MY boys will be 3 in June and are just now starting to really talk. I was real concerned at 2 yrs when they only said a couple of words and so I had them evaluated by a speech therapist. She assured me that they were fine and that it just took longer for twins to talk. My dd was speaking complete sentences at 12 months.

[seanjoshmom]

Late getting back to this, but yes, my baby who was on te bottom is the one whose speech is harder to understand! Yet, he has better physical skills! Interesting, I will have to look at that article.

[twindaze]

My twins were actually early talkers and were fairly similar, no correlation to who was on the bottom. My oldest was a bit delayed and didn't really say a whole lot until age 2 and he talks just fine now and never had speach therapy. They don't encourgage speach therapy until 2 around here unless there's an underlying condition such as prematurity. My twins weren't premature.

Jenny