Hellobee Boards

@irene: Speech delay is definitely worth treating early!

However, since you're in a bilingual household, your LO is definitely going to be on a different timeline! Have you had him evaluated by early intervention or a speech therapist?

Personally I think he's doing great! My LO is 20 months old and is no where near your Lo.

In this thread http://boards.hellobee.com/topic/uneven-child-development#post-669225

I talk about my brother. I am just going to copy and paste.

My older brother didn't really talk till he was 3 years old. My mother thought he might have been deaf and mute (she says dumb which is what mute means but I thought I would just say mute). Had a ton of tests done on him but everything came back fine. He was great outside of this no talking at all thing.

Turns out my mother... not to be mean but she's a bit over bearing. She use to do everything for us when we were little, got everything we need/wanted before we could need/want them. Basically my brother had no reason to talk since my mother got him everything he needed/wanted as a baby or figured out what he needed/wanted from his simple gestures.

The doc basically said, stop doing everything for him! Have him say what he wants or he won't get it. Basically this was toture to my mother to have him cry cry unable to commuicate what he wanted to her even though she knew exactly what he wanted but could not do a thing till he actually said it. My mother said he learned really fast and finally was on track with speech and everything by 4.

Of course I wasn't there, this is just a story my mother has told me about my brother. I wasn't born yet when all this happened. I'm not sure how much of this is true also.

But right now my brother is a very normal smart happy adult with a great paying job and lots of friends. Unmarried still but that's another story.

I just thought this would be useful to you and I hope you don't think I think you are anything like my mother because I don't know you but I'm pretty sure you are probably nothing like her.

If this not useful hopefully it was at least an entertaining story. ^_^

I'm no expert, but if I recall from my college classes on language development bilingual children develop language at a different pace than monolingual children. It doesn't sound to me like he's very "delayed" from what you describe.

However, a speech delay/disability is a pretty big deal. Yes, kids (and humans in general) are hard-wired for language development. But reading & writing don't come naturally and oral language plays a huge role in literacy development. Having speech issues can lead to some significant impacts in learning to read/write.

BUT, Im not saying your son has a speech delay/will struggle with literacy skills. I'm just answering the "what's the worst that could happen?" question.

@irene: mine is the same age and he certainly isn't doing 3 word sentences, shapes, colors, or counting yet (ok, he learned to mimic "red" today, but has no clue what it means). Most of his stuff is pretty random still at this point.

I see pretty similar levels with the kids his age and a little older in swim class and at the gym daycare too. I think it's great to get early intervention when needed, but I think giving him a little more time may not be a bad idea- you are doing a great job!

I tutor students for state and national vet tech boards, when they take their boards they always come back talking about how the entire test was only questions in the topic that is their weakness- was it really? Nope, we just tend to focus on our own weaknesses and the things we don't know, not our strengths. I guarantee your little guy has lots of other strengths that aren't getting focused on (definitely becoming bilingual!!). Hopefully he hits that language explosion we all hear about soon

This sounds great to me, especially for a bilingual child. (My own DS is bilingual with a 3rd language at school). In my very unscientific observation of my DS's toddler playgroup, many of the kids are between 22-26 months and don't have 50 words as far as I can tell, and half of them are also bilingual families.

I don't see this as a delay. Milestones say 1 word by 12 months and 2 word sentences by 2 years. My biggest worry would be hearing and if you've looked into that you are probably good. M was slow to talk but at 20 months, she's finally really starting to put it all together. School has really helped!

I think you have to trust your instincts. If you think your son is delayed because of bilingualism, then you should explore options.

I've been through it as well, in fact, I was where you are a year ago. And here's my take on it...multiple words isn't the issue, it's that when you break down language and formation of sounds, the mouth, tongue, jaw, throat, lungs, etc must all come together to form the perfect combinations in order to provide understandable sounds. My son knows that red is what I call it, Rot is what my husband calls it and Rojo is what his teacher calls the same color. He doesn't have issues with those words because his body performs the correct functions.

Think about what sounds your son has trouble with, they're probably the same sounds in both languages. That is not because of bilingualism. I hope this makes some sense!

DD is 5 and had a speech delay we started treating at 2 yo. She's caught up in language now (when she was in pre-k), but is behind on articulation.

It can affect how they socialize at school... They can be more introverted because they are afraid to speak if they can't be understood as well. So far, it hasn't been too much of an issue for us, socially.... But I do recall a few times when other kids were like, "what did she just say?" Or when she would tell me she didn't want to raise her hand to answer a question... Part of that of course, can be due to her inherent personality, but if people are constantly asking you what you just said, or to repeat yourself, it can be frustrating.

It can also affect learning to read, the process. She's in Kinder and we spend a lot more time on her phonics and reading homework vs other subjects. She has trouble with pronouncing sounds correctly. She's constantly improving, just at a slower rate than her peers I think. But school and speech therapy help wonders. They help us to focus on problem areas.

My son is 2 1/2 and he is just doing 2 word sentences (occasional three), started mimicking a few weeks ago and still is hardly understandable. I think your little guy is probably fine BUT follow your gut. In my gut I feel like something is wrong even though one school doesn't think so.

I remember worrying about this with my oldest and asking his pediatrician. He said that dual languages might cause an initial delay, but they more than make up for it later. Sure enough, at 24-26 months he had a language explosion!

*testing *testing….

I think if you are ever concerned it's a good idea to seek help from a professional. That being said, I will say that it sounds as though your son's speech and language is that of a typically developing 2 year old (almost 2!). I am a Speech Language Pathologist, and we generally look for 50 words and 2 word combinations at 2 years of age.
It sounds like you have articulation concerns as well. The error you noted (gar for car) is a phonological process that is common up until the age of three and then generally disappears. There are a lot of common errors that children often make and tend to disappear and these happen in typically developing children eg. "Tat" for "cat", "free" for "three". A 2 year old should be understood 50% of the time by an unfamiliar listener, and more so by you and other caregivers.
If you would like any materials for helping stimulate language development just write on my wall but here are some suggestions in the meantime:
- always expand on his utterances by adding a word. If he says "dog" then say "brown dog" or "Big dog" to him
- give him lots of opportunities to use words by providing communication temptations. If it's snack time, put his snack in a container that is hard for him to open. Encourage him to say "open!" Put his socks on his hand when getting dressed and wait for him to say something.
- talk about everything you are doing around him. If you're washing dishes say "wash, wash, wash the dishes. Mommy is scrubbing a plate, scrubbing a fork. Pop, pop, pop the soap bubbles....."

He sounds like he is doing fine but seek help if you are concerned. Sometimes it just helps to hear from someone that he is on track and to get some suggestions on what to try at home.