21 months old not talking

[lelask]

Hi, my friend has a 21 months old daughter and she does not say a word yet. She is starting to get worried. What can she do to help her or is it better to wait?. Just note she does not do any of the early learning activities as we mummies here on the forum.
thanks

[bbqgal]

First of all, get a hearing test done and make an appointment with early intervention. It's free and they will tell whether the child is qualify for service.

[lelask]

wow ,I would probably be scared to suggest that to her    but you are right. Thank you

[Skippy]

Yes, by all means, get a hearing test done. Right away.

Also, when the child hears a noise does she turn her head or look startled?
Does the child babble and make word like sounds?
Whether the child has a hearing problem or not, she could be helped by
learning even a few baby signs.  drink, more, potty, etc.

[Korrale4kq]

If she is in the US. Definitely contact her local Health Department to find out about getting assessed for early intervention. I live in Ohio and it is called Help me Grow but every state has different names.

My son is 18 months and doesn't say words, or rather, any words he has said don't 'stick'. He qualifies for the free assistance with a speech therapist.

I am an advocate for Early Intervention and personally I think that all kids should be screened. 

[lev amaris elle]

a. Your child must have a learning environment. Someone to talk to. Maybe the parents are too pre-occupied leaving the child less time for creating communication.

b. There are speech delays due to physical and emotional growth.

c. Visit the doctor to check if tongue is not short. If it is ok, then maybe speech therapy is needed.

d. Always talk and talk so that kids can emulate.

[lelask]

Thank you all for your replies. I have spoken to my friend and she said that her daughter could say some basic words but then she suddenly stopped and now she won't say a word.
What do you think?

[Skippy]

If the child was talking and then stopped, it's not a hearing problem.  The mother needs to see a doctor, just for reassurance.  Do an internet search for
"toddler stops talking"
Here are two quotes from the internet.
The first quote thinks that it's normal to stop talking if she's learning to walk,
but 17 months seems a bit old for this.  The second quote has to do with autism.

Here's one quote from a forum:
http://www.mothering.com/community/forum/thread/329430/14-month-old-has-stopped-talking
I don't think it's necessarily specific to her age, but I do think it's normal.

Babies and toddlers sometimes seem to "forget" some skills, esp. while they're working on another major skill. I remember how excited dd was when she learned to walk backwards. Then a couple months later, she couldn't do it anymore. At some point, she could do it again. The same was true for some words and signs.
My understanding is that regressions like that are pretty common and normal. I think their little brains get overwhelmed with new learning and development, and they have to let go of some abilities while they work on other ones. I would just keep using the signs with her, and verbalizing what she wants before giving it to her, to help "remind" her of what she's already learned.

Another quote from the same forum:
People have insinuated that the signs are preventing the speech from happening, but I don't think so :

: right there with you. My 1st dd was almost 2 before she said even 2 words that sounded like the real words. But, she signed a TON! She talks up a storm now, so who cares how early she talked. She was communicating, and that's all that matters. That comment was one of my BIGGEST pet peeves. I usually just politely responded when anyone would question the signing and her lack of speech, "Actually, studies have shown that kids who sign have earlier speech, and every kid is different. I am so glad she can sign, imagine if she had no way to communicate!"

Now, my 13 month old has 8 understandable words.  Aaaahhh, kids are so different!!

 http://discovermagazine.com/2006/apr/vital-signs
About 25 percent of children with autism develop language normally but then lose the ability to speak sometime between 16 and 30 months of age. The condition, called regressive autism, is not known to many physicians, so they may worry about a rare degenerative disorder instead.

[KL]

I would recommend 3 things:

1. Ear test, as already suggested

2. Exploring whether there was lack of crawling.  Read the article on brillbaby.com about Physical development and crawling, regarding the relationship between cross-pattern crawling and speech.

3. We received a testimonial from a LR user whose child's preschool teacher was worried about the child's speech development and suggested taking him for treatment.  After using LR for about 10 weeks, the child's vocabulary exploded, and with that, he began to talk a lot too, simply because he now understands so much more as to what things are called.  So your friend might want to try a program which builds vocabulary too.

[MummyRoo]

I'm amazed that I hadn't made the connection, but my son didn't crawl in a cross pattern until 18m and only in the last couple of weeks does so 90% of the time - and in the last couple of weeks his speech has improved dramatically! So I agree with KL on that one 

[Kenberlin]

21 months child is enough capable to speak 30-40 words easily and can joint the 2 words and can a small sentence as well. If your friend child is not speaking single words then your friend should have to give more consideration on her speech. They should take a help from any best speech therapist.

[JainaRei]

Albert Einstein didn't talk until he was 5 and when he did, it wasn't baby talk but normal speach (I think he talked with a stutter for a while though, I believe when an uncle gave him a compass when he was 6 he couldn't stop talking about it, thats when his dad asks a friend to teach Albert about science). Sometimes children are so busy absorbing the world around them that they don't talk until much later. So Perhaps lelask your friend has a genius in the making.

That said I agree with KL with LR and the crawling. http://youtu.be/HJc36xV4nX8 Here's a youtube video about the sucess this family has had with their 3 children. I do not agree with calling autisim a brain injury but I have read and heard in previous places that early intervention help children to intergrate into society better when they are older.

also agree with skippy on the loss of skills. http://youtu.be/QFr7p8PAwlU Youtube video of a yale lecture from a doctor doing research on how autism presents in infants and young children. Its long but I found it it be very comprehesive. Dr. Kasia Chawarska said that some children developed normally up to age 2 1/2 but that it usually presents around 18 months.

[JainaRei]

Sorry I forgot to add, If the child is highly sensitive emotionally, a change in the family, (like a new sibing, a favourite relitive like grandma dying, divorce or even something that is causing a great deal a stress to the childs parents), can impact the childs development. The child can't filter out other people emotions or may feel loss deeply and at an early age dosen't have tools to cope, so they retreat to an inside world to try and process things. I don't know how to put a like in to another thread but the Highly Sensitive Child thread will have links to help determine if the child is highly sensitive or not.

[seastar]

I second the hearing test and speech therapy assessment advice. This is what I tend to suggest to friends if I ever suspect a problem as it is something concrete to focus on while getting this moving.

And I think sign langauge and Little Reader would be excellent for this child no matter what it turns out to be and it will help the parents feel more in control.

Best of luck

[pcad]

If a child lives in a two languages environment it seems that there can be a delay in speech development by up to 6 months compared to the average child.

Not sure if it is the case of your friend but I just thought to share it

Cheers

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