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M is the same really and only last few weeks started clearly looking at daddy and saying dada or me and saying mama. I would be more worried if she wasn't babbling too?

asher is 11 months too and has the same sounds, he also just recently discovered the oooooouuu sounds and growling

i wouldn't be worried at all! i don't think they actually have words that mean a whole lot for a while yet.

for sure ask your doc at his 1 year appt though, if you are concerned!

I don't think he's behind at all! My nephew didn't really start saying words until he was at least 15 months and even now at 19 months he says "wagua" for water, "uh-oh", "mama" and just a few other words. For a nearly two year old that might not be seen as normal but he hasn't been "behind" in anything else and both my sister and I see no issue whatsoever.

T is babbling and I think that's important!

Has he had any ear problems? Friends of mine have a daughter, who they thought was behind in speech because of not having much socialization at her home daycare. Turns out her ears were severely blocked and after having tubes put in her talking went up dramatically. I think they figured it out when she was about 2.5.

@winniebee: I wouldn't worry too much just yet! Just keep talking and interacting a lot and see how things go!

In terms of having words, for now I'd focus less on what he can say and more on what he understands... expressive language tends to lag receptive language. Some good definitions here!

http://nspt4kids.com/parenting/expressive-vs-receptive-language/

I also wanted to point out that our pediatrician gave us a good rule of thumb that they use in the office for determining if a child is on track for speech. I can not for the life of me remember what the rot is for age 1, I want to say 1/4.

At age 2, the doctor should be able to understand about 1/2 of what the child says.
By age 3, it should be 3/4 and by age 4 it should be fully understandable.

My LO didn't start to establish his vocabulary until 18 months, and boy did he have a word explosion. Usually doctors won't start to worry until the 15 month mark, and many kids make a lot of progress by 18 months.

We talked about this with my pediatrician at LOs 1 year appt. last week. Like @mrbee: we talked about comprehension, my LO understands quite a bit so the pediatrician wasn't in the least bit worried. LO says mama & dada but not to us, just when babbling, though if I ask her to find Mama's bellybutton she lifts up my shirt. LO has 3 words that we understand.

No, your child is absolutely normal. Many (a majority, I think) children won't have any recognizable words before 1. The average milestone is 1 word at 12 months, but as long as your child has three words by 18 months, you're all good.

Nope, not behind

As pediatricians we focus a lot (too much in my opinion) on milestones. We are tested in our boards one what is or isn't a milestone and whether children are behind or not. We spend a ton of time on development. Our purpose is to identify problems and refer, not to necessarily treat the problem, which may be why there is a perception that we don't know development.

A good rule of thumb is babbling by 9 months, one word by 12 months, a two word sentence by age 2 and 50% of the speech intelligible by an outsider at age 2.

I wouldn't refer unless a child is grossly outside those limits and my first referral is to audiology.

He sounds fine to me. My son actually was speech delayed. We didn't start to actively seek intervention until he was close to 2. He started speaking consistently at around 2.5 while working with a speech therapist. My daughter was rather quiet at around age 1 as well. It gave me flashbacks to when my son was younger. Now, at 21 months, she is talking up a storm. Every child is different. It sounds like he is comprehending some of the things you're saying to him - that's a good sign.

My son was a late talker, but as he understood everything I said I wasn't worried. Then one day he just started spouting all these words, and now he is where he should be. The biggest thing I learnt was to talk to babies properly, don't speak in baby talk and talk to them a lot.

In my experience, with family and friend's kids it's not uncommon for boysto be late talkers.

If your LO is behind than so is mine! ^_^

LO is almost 14 months old and still doesn't really have a word under his belt but I really liked what mrbee linked to because LO was able to clap/wave/put his arms up/+tons of things by command at about 9 months old.

@winniebee: How is T talking these days? Would love an update!

@winniebee: speech therapists typically look for children to be stringing two words together by 24m so sounds like LO is doing great!