20 Month Old Won't Speak

Wow,
I won't minimize but my experience was this......
My son hardly spoke before his 3rd birthday. My friends were secretly worried, but he was my first and I didn't have a clue. He is 24 years old now and has a career in public speaking. LOL!

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The earlier you start teaching children the faster they learn. I was concerned about my dd when she turned 1, and the drs kept telling us everyone learns at a different pase. After she turned 2 I found out about a program called ECI (Early Childhood Intervintion) who came to our home for therapy until she turned 3 and the public schools tood over. She is 5 and still doing therapy. Her articulation is off, but she tries to talk. If you can't find an ECI try calling the schools to see if they can help. DO NOT WAIT!

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Like Patty I don't want to minimize and I suggest you follow your doctor's advice. However, I was your son when I was his age. I had an older brother who was my spokesman. I would go find him to speak for me or I would just forgo whatever it was I needed or wanted. There are tons of home videos with me tugging on my brother's shirt, him leaning down and then going off to get whatever it was I wanted. My mother said I started talking around 3 but she did say I was always a rather self-contained child. Don't necessarily worry.

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Please have him tested for speech therapy. The faster he receives therapy the sooner it will be that you wonder why you ever were concerned.

My middle son was saying about the same amount of words at 20 months. At 24 months I asked the pediatrician about it. He said, "Boys talk later than girls." But my mother, who is a teacher, prodded me to seek out an evaluation. Sure enough, he not only qualified for speech but for occupational therapy. (Gross motor skills are tied to speaking skills).

Hours and years of therapy later, he is an above grade level seven year old. His vocabulary is wonderful and I sometimes have to stop and remember how far we have come. He still qualifies for speech to 'clean up' some issues in his speech but overall he is doing well.

Your state should have regional centers that will pick up the tab and provide for these services until he is three. These services are not related to your income; everyone qualifies) Then at three, you can work with the school district for services.

Good luck. I know it is super scary right now but if you avocate for your son right now you won't look back reqreting that you didn't do anything.

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I have a friend whose son didn't start speaking until he was 2 1/2. She said he hasn't shut up since. He is 6 years old now. Her younger son will be 2 in October and doesn't say a lot either. She said she isn't concerned since she knows the pattern with her older son. She said if he isn't speaking by 2 1/2 then she'll investigate further.

I agree w/the other ladies. But there is one thing that comes to my mind. My nephew.... My daughter and him are 21/2 yrs apart he is the oldest. My daughter could carry on a convertion with you at the age of 11/2yr but he couldn't speak more then 4 or 5 words. My sis was concerned and went to the doc. He said "He will start talking when he wants to." So she trusted the docs word. Well @ the age of 41/2 he could only speak 10 to 15 words he also SCREECHED in a loud noise. He understood everything people were telling him to do. She finally told the doc to give her a referal to an ENT Specialist. He ended up having 3% hearing in his Lt ears 75% in his Rt ear. So they put tubes in his ears and put him in Speech PT for about 3yrs. It has delayed is education and social skills termendisly. He is going to be 16yrs old and reads at a 6th grade level.

I'm NOT staying this is wrong with your son!!! But this what came to my mind when I read your story.

I wish you and your son luck to over come this.
Just be patient with him and stren with the doctor!

My son's first word was "mama" at 23 months last November. This was right about the time we had him evaluated and since then he had an hour of therapy once a week during the school year. I would suggest contacting the ECFE coordinator in your school district. It's free and will put your mind at ease. They can also give you tips for encouraging verbal development, things that you may not realize will help. My son is now 2 1/2 and speaks in long sentences. I don't know if it's because of the therapy or if he just decided he was ready, but we're glad we got the therapy for him.

I think he seems perfectly normal. My 3 year didn't speak at all until 22 months and it was like literally over night he started to talk in sentences. My 19 month old has a few words he uses but doesn't meet the milestone of 6-10 words. I told the doctor I was not worried at all. Boys can take longer and if they understand what you are saying and are trying to use other methods to communicate, like pointing, I would say give him time. What is the rush? He may be trying to master some other skill and push talking on the back burner. Parents today are in such a rush to make their kids grow up too fast, I think. My 3 year does not ever stop talking until he is asleep, it can be very tiring listening to him talk non stop. So enjoy because that might be your son. I would say if by 24 months he still is not talking maybe consider speech therapy but even then I would give him a couple more months.
Good Luck!

Updated

I think he seems perfectly normal. My 3 year didn't speak at all until 22 months and it was like literally over night he started to talk in sentences. My 19 month old has a few words he uses but doesn't meet the milestone of 6-10 words. I told the doctor I was not worried at all. Boys can take longer and if they understand what you are saying and are trying to use other methods to communicate, like pointing, I would say give him time. What is the rush? He may be trying to master some other skill and push talking on the back burner. Parents today are in such a rush to make their kids grow up too fast, I think. My 3 year does not ever stop talking until he is asleep, it can be very tiring listening to him talk non stop. So enjoy because that might be your son. I would say if by 24 months he still is not talking maybe consider speech therapy but even then I would give him a couple more months.
Good Luck!

I think it depends on the whole picture. My 23-month-old doesn't say many words at all, but he understands everything I say, follows directions, points and makes noises, and his motor skills are amazing. I don't think you can measure development in terms of number of words like people often do. My older son (he's 6) said the correct number of words at all stages of his development, but needs speech and occupational therapy. While he said the right number of words, they were difficult to understand, and his motor skills were way behind. So really, the big picture is what should be looked at, not just how many words he says. Lots of kids speak later and are just fine! I spoke late and my parents told me they'd not get me what I wanted in hopes I'd just say the word. All it did was frustrate me. I talked when I was ready to talk, and your son will too.

The signs of autism typically show up at 2; the child who was formerly talking stops talking. It doesn't sound like this is true of your son, because you didn't mention any changes in his behavior. So long as he still seems like the same kid, still makes eye contact, still snuggles as much as he did before, then I would not worry about autism. If you have any concerns, I think you should check it out with your doctor and with your local school system.

My younger son had only 3-4 words until one month before he turned two, and he is an extremely verbal and articulate 10 year old now.

He may be getting frustrated when you try to "make him" ask for it. I think this is a great idea, the methods might just be a little off. My job is primarily developing language in young children in an early intervention setting (I work with kids with autism) and this is what we do... it's called the "1, 2, 3, deliver" method. So, say your son really wants a train. You know he wants it because he indicates his motivation for the item in some way. You hold the item out, and say "train" three times to try to elicit an echoic response. If, by the third time, he does not repeat the word, give it to him anyway and again repeat "train." If he makes any attempt to say the word, you can give him a whole bunch of trains and cheer for him a lot! If he doesn't say anything, you can just give him one train, or let him play with it for a shorter amount of time. The idea is to reduce his frustration levels surrounding talking, and to teach him that talking gets him awesome stuff!

Another tip is to make sure his motivation for the item is really high. Until kids learn the "I talk, I get" concept, it may seem to difficult for him and he'll just give up. So, my suggestion would be to only use this method when you are sure that he REALLY wants what you are asking him to ask for.

This is just my suggestion based on my experience, but I would also definitely get him going in ST.

Good luck!

My son is just over three now. We had him evaluated at 18 months and he has been in both speech and occupational therapy ever since. My sister regretted not putting her son in earlier so I opted to start early just in case.
Soon he'll be in preschool and the school will take over his speech therapy.

I have no idea why he wasn't talking but speech therapy has made a world of difference. In the beginning it seemed to be more about helping US. He's our first and only child so it was nice to get "non family" advice from professionals.

I also got a lot of comfort from talking to other parents while waiting in the lobby. Most of those parents had kids with WAY worse problems than just speech.

Worse case senario is you need to start speech therapy. Be prepared to have to go for a hearing test.They HAVE to rule hearing issues out before they go any further. We had to go twice since he was so little and melted down at the first appointment and only got one ear tested.

My daughter was about 27 months before she started actually talking. I still remember her second birthday that she was only saying a few words then. I have a nephew that is 25 months that only says a few clear words and does get upset when you cannot understand him. My son is one day younger than him and talks clearly non-stop, 5-6 word sentences also. Each child develops at a different pace. I wouldn't be too concerned yet. If he still hasn't increased his speak by 2 1/2-3 yr old I would talk to your pediatrician about speech therapy then, even at 2 they do not understand a whole lot to begin with.

K.,

It is a myth that children with older siblings "refuse" to speak or that they don't because others do it for them. In any case, this is an issue even if it were the case because your son is not practicing the give and take of speaking. By 24 months, he should have 50 words and be using two or more in a simple sentence. His speech should be intellegible but not without articulation errors which are typcial and expected. It is unlikely that he will progress to the point where he is doing all that in 4 months, so get a jump on in and see a speech therapist ASAP.

There is a reason that he is not speaking, and he has an expressive language delay, no matter what the reason if he clearly understands what he is not saying, period. An evaluation is a win win situation. Either you walk out the door having a speech therapist tell you (based on good evaluation) that he is fine and not to worry or you walk out the door knowing what to do to help him achieve more typical langague development, which is absolutely critical to all his other cognitive development. What is not to like about that? Never, never wait and see when it comes to development, your son has way too much to lose if you are wrong.

M.

This sounds just like my 23 month old. I had every horrible thought and worry. She wouldn't repeat anything we tried to get her to say... she wouldn't sign either (her sister was the best at it) no matter how much reinforcement she had. She was terrribly frustrated and cried alot because she couldn't tell us what she wanted. THen magically at about 21 months she started to say some words. She is now saying almost everything and repeating almost everything we say to her. She still isn't talking even close to how well my other daughter did... but at least she is on the right road now.

If you're feeling concerned and frustrated, then I would say to put in another call to the pediatrician and see about getting him evaluated. They may be able to give you tips for helping him to communicate.

What did with our little guy is when we figured out what he was asking for, we would repeat the word and use the sign and shape his own hands into the sign. He was slow to speak words but babbled constantly (sometimes he sounds like he's speaking Russian or Chinese! :).

I do think you're right though--he's probably just not motivated to speak, since he can sort of get across what he wants now without the effort. :) (we're sort in the same boat! LOL!)

My son did not speak until he was a little over 3 years. My first son spoke early and so I expected as much from second. Didn't happen. Every ped visit was the same: healthy child, developing well, just did not want to speak. Dr said every child is different, and we should hold off unless I was really worried. Then my mom said something to me. "He has nothing to say right now. His big brother gets him everything he wants. But when he does speak, watch out the flood gates will open. You will not be able to shut him up." My mom raised 6 kids, so I tend to believe what she says. I left it alone, and by golly if she wasn't right. Now 11 (almost 12) he speaks up a storm, there were times his father and I would have headaches because of how much he talked. He is very observant and ask tons of questions, And just this past year (6th grade) he took Honors English, Science and Math, and did excelled. This is my case, what I went through with my child. I understand how you feel, because it wasn't until my mom told me to relax that I did. You need to relax when you find the right anwser for you. Hope this helped.

ALOT of boys are late to speak, sometimes they concentrate on other things before this. I have two girls and all my friends have boy children. I try to implore them not too compare, boys and girls are like a night and day difference. I think i read somewhere that Albert Einstein did not speak until he was 5. I know boys some 3, some 5 that barely utter actual words, mostly jibberish. As a matter of fact i only know of one boy who spoke before the age of two. His mom was very diligent about verbal education. Im not saying that you arent, im saying she focused on it mainly. I think it is a little early to worry about speech therapy. I think you are doing the very right thing by asking him to name the object he wants. be sure to get super excited when he does utter a word (something tells me that you probably do anyway;))

You should call your school district's Early Childhood and Family Education office and say you have speech concerns. Since your child is under three, they will come to you (either house or daycare) and begin evaluation. They will let you know if there is cause for concern or not and if there is concern, they will start speech therapy, again at your home or daycare. These services are free, so if you have concerns, there's no reason not to use them. (I'm also in the Osseo 279 District and my son gets speech through them. They have good teachers in ECFE and ECSE; you'll like them)