16 month old not talking - any ideas to progress speech?

[allthatiam]

I am a little concerned about my 16 month old. He is not saying anything accept 'nana' for bananna and 'be' for 'bell'. He doesn't even say 'mamma' or 'dadda'. I am not concerned about autism as he is babbling a lot, communicates with pointing and around 40 baby signs & is very social. In all other areas he is on track. His verbal comprehension appears to be ok - he can understand simple instructions like 'Bring mummy the book'. He is a very physical child & was walking, climbing, feeding himself, drawing etc earlier than average.
I discovered a couple of months ago that his hearing was probably being effected by fluid in the ears& recurrent ear infections. The tester, however, had difficulty determining the exact extent of hearing loss because he wasn't particularly interested in the testing task. She said the hearing loss could have been anything from 'mild' to 'considerable'. He had grommets to drain the fluid in ears put in about two weeks ago. I think I have noticed a difference in his verbal comprehension since but it is difficult to tell.
Should I be worried that he is not speaking yet or is it too early? Is there anything else I can do to assist his speech development? I am using Little Reader so I am hoping that that will help his verbal comprehension (if not give him a head start in reading!).I am also trying to articulate things more clearly when speaking to him but apart from that I am at a loss.

[Mandabplus3]

If he has only just began to hear properly I wouldn't be too worried about the delay. To ensure a speedy catchup you need to speak clearly and often. imagine that he hasn't heard a word you said for the past 2 years and that's how much talking you have to catch up on. Label everything you see. Talk constantly about what you are doing. Ask questions, then pause...then answer your own questions if he doesn't.
Using LR repeat every word they say, then gradually reduce the amount of repeating you do but leave the space to encourage him to repeat the words back. Encourage him to say each word after the computer. Borrow a speaking child if you can to demonstrate how each word needs to be spoken afterwards.
Speek as you sign.
Don't give him ANYTHING that he points to or grunts for without using some words. Especially if you know he CAN say those words. This trick works wonders for kids who can talk but just don't bother. Once you hear him say a word ( drink?) never say it for him again. Be sure not to guess at what he wants if you know he can verbalise it.
You are probably going to see a dramatic explosion in speech soon. He can hear clearer now and that will certainly make it easier to copy the sounds and sleek back.

[allthatiam]

Thank you for your advice. I think I was suddenly hoping he would start speaking after the grommets were put in - perhaps a little too much to ask after at least 8 months of poor hearing!
I like your idea about getting another child to demonstrate the speaking of the words on Little Reader. He is very curious about other children and likes to copy. Now to find that other child!

[AaronJ]

hi

I'm not sure if you will find this helpful but I recently came across an article by a speech therapist who did a thesis on speech delay.She gave me a page from her brain therapy manual including an exercise that you can do with your child to help to work the brain in "opening up" speech

If your would like me to e-mail the information to you, please let me have your e-mail contact.

[allthatiam]

Hi Aaron, that would be great. I sent you my email in a private message ;-)

[AaronJ]

Ok will do so. I would have put it on the forum but just that I have problems attaching the file because of the format one of the files is in.

After you receive it from me, pls can you put the other file which has the report from the brain therapy manual on this forum to share with others if you can find a way to do so.

Thanks and I wish you all the best with the exercises. Don't forget about including lecithin in the diet too as written in the report

[elaida]

I think it's probably too early to be concerned. 40 signs and being able to communicate is pretty good. Given that your child can do so many signs, he probably does not feel the need to vocalize quite yet, as he has another way to communicate with you. He's probably thinking of the sounds in his head and making sure that they are right before doing the vocalization (this is common in many kids).

Children are so different. My niece, at 19 months, is not saying anything but dada. It looks to me that most of my son's day care class (mostly 19 month olds, with a 16 and an 18 month old) are not really saying anything, either.

On the other hand, my son, who has failed the hearing tests since birth due to fluid in the ears (and we refused ear tubes), has been speaking many words since around 12 months (now almost 15 months). The specialists said that one ear is pretty compromised and the other is somewhat compromised, but it got a little better over the summer.
Both my partner and I are quiet people and do not speak much, so I did not think he would be an early talker. I think what got him talking was that we happened to have a set of books that reinforced each other and we had read those books over and over again when he was 10-12 months old (since he liked them). They were books about farm/zoo animals and we would go through and make animal sounds (so we would not necessarily read the text in the book). So, his early set of "words" consisted of many animal sounds. Animal sounds are something that kids like to make. We would reinforce that we understood him when he made an animal sound. He would say "woof" and we would say, "yes, that's a dog. it says 'woof'".  Or we would point to a picture and ask him what it was and if he made the correct animal sound, we would say "yes, that's right, it's a dog!" (for example). Being understood was motivation for him to move into non-animal sound words. We don't spend time "correcting" his pronunciation at this point, and just praise him for identifying things that he knows and saying them.

As for 'mama' and 'dada', I think this is again based on need and ease. In my opinion, 'dada' is a more difficult word. I was using a foreign language, so we used 'baba' for daddy, which was much easier for my child to pick up. Now, we can say Daddy in English or baba in the other language, and he knows it means the same person, but he only says 'baba'. My child would say 'baba' a bit because I would use it through the day, saying things like "Daddy is not here", "Daddy will be coming home", "Daddy is at work", "Let's go find Daddy" in the other language, so he would call for Dad when Dad was at home. On the other hand, Dad rarely ever referred to me, and I was with my child all day, so he never had a need to call me specifically. If he wanted something, he could just cry or scream, etc, and I would be there. So, "mama" was not necessary. It's only recently that he has started to use "mama", mostly with strangers/babysitters/daycare and in public places. So, I think these two words will happen when he feels there is a need to use them.

I have two books, The Talking Baby, and Let's Talk Together. I've only skimmed them and never implemented anything in either book. The books suggest different activities for getting your child to make specific sounds leading to words. If you want to try one of the books, I would suggest Let's Talk Together, as it has more substance. A lot of what is in The Talking Baby is common sense or general parenting advice.

Good luck!

[allthatiam]

Thanks for your thoughts Elaida.
 I think it is really hard at this age to know whether it is speech delay or he is a late talker but what I have read suggests that not having 1-2 words by 12 months and 5 words (not inc mumma and dadda) by 18 months is a 'red flag'. I thought at one stage the delay might be due to holding back because of the signs but I am not so sure any more. He is a very vocal child, and I can tell he is trying to say things, but he just says the same thing for almost every word he tries  'dat'  or 'be' (depending on which more closely resembles the word!). Having said that, he has just learnt 'mumma' and is taking obvious delight in saying it! He doesn't babble with a very large range of sounds, so I think what is holding him back is producing the speech sounds.
It may all come together in a couple of months but I'd prefer to be on the safe side particularly considering the hearing loss. Language is so important!
It's interesting what you said about your son. Strange how some kids can pick up language despite hearing difficulties etc. Maybe your son is really bright!? I've done all the reading animal books and making animal sounds but the most I have got back is 'dat' for quack! Oh well. I don't think my son particularly language orientated in the first place Its all about go go go and do do do.
I'll  check out 'The Talking Baby' on google.

[allthatiam]

Hi Aaron J. Received the article. The challenge is keeping him still enough to do the exercises. Have you tried these sort of exercises yourself?

Yes, and lecithin is on the shopping list!

[AaronJ]

Yes we did start the exercises. Initially my son ( 2 years and 9 months) was quite resistant so we had to make it  as if it were a game. You really do need 2 people to do the exercises with the child. You might want to do the exercise for half the period of the stated time before increasing it gradually when your child becomes more accustomed to it. Did you try playing some soothing music in the background while you did the exercise?

I find that if I prayed about it beforehand, it also made a difference and he was more compliant.

We also did notice a difference when we started including lecithin in his diet, about 1 tablespoon a day in his breakfast cereal for about a week now. His words became clearer even within a few days and he is beginning to say more words each day as we go along. He also began to string words together a bit more and even managed a complete sentence of his own which took me completely by surprise. It really is touchig to see his progress and gladens my heart.

Before,this, we sometimes felt quite helpless when we couldn't meet his needs if we couldn't understand him since he had trouble expressing himself. I guess it's a process and journey over time as we slowly learn to understand him more. It's still early days yet.

For our next step we plan to add flavoured cod liver oil supplement as suggested. Hopefully he will like it. We feel that by taking things step by step helps us know what's really working for him.

Hopefully, you will have some good succees too   

By the way for those who are interested, I have managed to get the other file re-formatted in order to upload it......so here it is in the attachement
 

[TheyCan]

What great information!  I never knew about lecithin.  I actually used to use it alot in my baking, but I had no idea of it's benefits (my receipes just said it was optional - ). I stopped baking as much when I had a second son and haven't bought any since! 

[Corinne2011]

Aaron J, could you please send me the the information you have, also?  I have a 21 month old who we want to get talking.  Thank you so much for offering it.  I love current research.
Elise

[AaronJ]

hi Elise
the information I sent to "allthatiam" is the same 2 files that I have attached to my previous posts which was  today's and on the 9 Oct. If you need other information, I will try to source it for you

[Krista G]

I just read this blog post yesterday.  It deals with the same issue you are addressing.

http://www.growingupmadison.com/2013/10/monkisee-super-fun-early-learning-dvd.html

[oasis]

Hi Aaron,
Could you please send me those 2 files as well. I do not see any attachments to your post.
Thank you so much.

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