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I don't have speech experience but I think there's no harm in asking for an EI evaluation. The process took almost two months for R's PT services to begin so it can take a while. What's your gut saying?

There's definitely no harm in having the eval done if you are worried. Would you need to be referred by a pediatrician or can you do it? I asked our peds office to do the referral, but maybe I could have done it myself!

Like @swedishfish: mentioned - what's your gut say?

I would say they sound fine to me - what you describe is almost exactly how L is. She's 18 months and only in the couple weeks has started pointing to body parts and getting pretty good at following directions. Her language is pretty pathetic though. She has a couple words that she does say really well (mama, dada, water, baby, brownie), and then another 20 or so that are iffy and someone who didn't interact with her daily would have no idea what she was saying (her daycare provider doesn't even know!). I'm pretty confident she's fine though. I think some kids are just not too concerned with working on their vocabulary yet.

But, if at the end of the day you're actually concerned, you should definitely pursue it - sometimes you just *know*

I would just make the appointment and not worry about being overzealous. I understand those appointments take a while to set up anyway.

My only experience with this is in early childhood education (I'm not a mom yet), but from a teacher's standpoint....if the services were being offered to my kids, I would *definitely* take advantage of them. Private speech therapy paid for by the state?! Yes, please! The kids I've known who have gone through this come out so far on top, and I've never heard a parent say they regretted going through with it. It can't hurt to at least get the evaluation done, right? Best wishes!

@ChiCalGoBee: just an FYI, be careful with the assumption that services are covered by the state. Every state is different. In my state, services are on a sliding fee scale (difficult to qualify for assistance) until the age of 3. EI really just provides coordination in most cases

They sound like they are on track to me, but it never hurts to call! LO is in EI for speech, I got her evaluated before she hit 18 months and I think it almost hurt us that I didnt wait because they graded her at a 16 month level even though she was only a few days shy of 18 months. She had only 1 word at the time so I knew she was delayed, but it is weird how they evaluate them. They do a little over the phone interview and another interview in person with just asking me questions before they even do the evaluation, and at both they let me know she was on the cusp so an evaluation would be good. She ranked really high in receptive and average for expressive, she only qualified because she didnt use her spoon/ fork all the time or correctly or use an open cup. Never hurts to call and see, it might be the only way to help the mamma worry.

ETA Even if a child doesnt qualify everyone that I have dealt with at EI want to help. They said even if she didnt qualify they would help give us the tools to help LO on our own and we could ask as many questions as we wanted, one lady even said we could call her if we had more questions. Not sure about everywhere but our experience has been fantastic.

An EI appointment can't do anything but good! either you'll get great news that there right on track or you will know that you're getting them the help that they need.

I say no harm no foul in calling and having them check out. I feel like these issues work out better the sooner they are addressed. If not EI, many kids speech language pathologists will do a free assessment (with the hope of gaining your business out of it). The worst they could say is "no they are great" which honestly isn't necessarily the case and even if they squeak by, I bet the ppl who come will have a bevy of advice.

@Mrs. Blue: coming for a speech therapist standpoint, I would call and set up an appointment. Of course I can't say if your boys would qualify or not, but it's something to look into. Some states require a child to be delayed by even up to 50% in more than one area. It will really depend on your assessment team. Also, there are definitely just "late talkers," but unfortunately so many are told this and then I end up seeing them at 3 and they still are almost non-verbal or highly unintelligible. I don't think that would happen by any means, but parents should never feel bad about calling for an assessment. If nothing else, the team will give you some good ideas for home.
Anyways, at 18 months, this is what I would be looking for:
-uses 20-50 words (but don't have to be completely intelligible)
-tries to copy/mimic your sounds
-understands simple directions (get your ball)
-uses at least 4 consonant sounds (p,b,m,d,t,h)
-identifies things in books (where is the baby?)
-points to 3 body parts
-says "no" or shakes head
-points/identifies familiar people

Hope this helps you out a bit. Of course all kids develop at different times/ways, but this is a guide I would use.

@MommySLP:

It can't hurt to have an evaluation done. I've requested an evaluation for my son, and while he's 2 yrs old now and made a lot of progress since we were initially concerned, I'm still planning to go ahead with the eval. He has loads of words, but he's not really combining words yet.

@MommySLP: I'm going to ask here since it might be helpful for others...
My 18 month (adjusted) son has 20+ words, but only used a handful.
He follows directions, points to things, identifies people, and has lots of consonant sounds.
But he doesn't really identify any body parts.
He had never mimicked..
And he doesn't say no, just pushes things away or ignores.

How would you look at that? (We already see a high risk follow up clinic, I'm just curious because there are so many variable and I find it confusing!)

@MommySLP: thanks for that list! great guidelines and i was just adding up LO's words and i was pretty surprised to see that it's over 20!

@Mrs. Blue: My honest opinon, having a son with a diagnosed delay, is not to wait.

@MommySLP: yikes....my lo isn't doing a lot of those things. I have been putting the evaluation off, but i might go ahead and call...

I do have a question though. Would you use a child's adjusted age or actual age when determining if they are behind? Lo was 5 weeks early....does that matter at this point?

@MommySLP: Wow! 20-50 words at 18 months??? Now you've got me worried that Xander is delayed, although I didn't ever think he was! He only has maybe 10 words that he uses consistently at 17 months and I can't imagine him gaining another 10+ in less than a month...

@MommySLP: haha, okay! He does most of the other things on your list, so I feel like he's probably okay! Thanks for your insight!