At what age did your child start talking?

honeymonster

I have a nephew, he will be 3 in Feb. His speech is very limited. I'm worried as most of my friends have said their child started talking around 2.

He has a sister, she was speaking fully at 2.

He is meant to see a specialist but there is a waiting list.

The strange thing is he completely understands you. If you ask him to do something he'll do it. But he doesnt say much. And some of his words are confused. For example he'll call a football a bat.

Has anyone experienced this?

AvaKinder

Children tend to start speaking at different ages and if he can understand what you say to him, and make his wants know then I wouldnt worry too much.

For example my aunt and a friend of my mothers gave birth two weeks apart to a girl and boy respectively. The little girl was having full blown completely coherent conversations at two, while the boy was still mumbling with fairly limited speech at 3 1/2. Now they are both six and totally on par with each other so don't panic until a doctor checks it out. Some kids just don't talk as fast but it isn't always a problem, they're just taking their time.

tudlytops

honeymonster wrote: »

I have a nephew, he will be 3 in Feb. His speech is very limited. I'm worried as most of my friends have said their child started talking around 2.

He has a sister, she was speaking fully at 2.

He is meant to see a specialist but there is a waiting list.

The strange thing is he completely understands you. If you ask him to do something he'll do it. But he doesnt say much. And some of his words are confused. For example he'll call a football a bat.

Has anyone experienced this?

Mine started late she was about 3 and half, she did get checked but they said that because we spoke Portuguese at home and then they spoke English in her school, she was just confused and when she sorted that out in her own head she would start talking, and talking she did, she not stopped yet lol

bada_bing

i can understand why you're worried but as other people said there's no defined age at which kids should be able to start talking. In my case , i didn't speak a word at all until i was 5 years old but that was mostly cos i was born with partial deafness in both ears and only developed my speech when i went to a deaf school. But my point is that even if there is some extended delay in his speech development, he'll catch up quite fast once he starts talking.

Apparently as a small little dude I had very little to say, I was born in 1980 and my Grandad died in 1985, apparently he used to say will that boy ever speak, I used to say the odd few things but not much. I used to suck my thumb a lot. Also I wasn't able to pronounce some words properly, calling omelette ambulances and I used to refer to our dog as a "dumb animinalal" or something along those lines. I had no probs at school or anything but was not a talker.

I wouldn't worry about it, don't make a big thing out of it, will only make the little chap think too much about it.

deisemum

It varies so much with children. My first son spoke early and was able to say 5 or 6 word sentances when he had his 12 month development check and he hasn't shut up since but he was a lot later in other areas of his development. As a childminder I've seen some start talking early and others a lot older. One thing though is most toddlers that are not talking can usually understand what you're saying.

Other children are just shy in front of people outside their immediate family so tend to clam up.

OP at least your nephew is on a waiting list so it's not being ignored.

Voltex

I think the key point the OP made was that the child understands everything thats being said to him...so his ability to understand language is fine....which is probably the important factor.

My son had very limited speech untill about 2 1/2...so much so we were actually begining to worry. then one day we decided that maybe his soother was an obsticle to his speech development so we got rid of it....then it was like someone threw a switch...he was coming out with everything...all these words we never knew he understood like "actually Mammy/Daddy".

The great thing about kids is that they are so different all of them...each of them has their own identity that will emerge over time.

Keep us updated OP on your nephews progress....fingers crossed all will be ok!:)

honeymonster

Thanks for the comments. I'll let you know of his progress.

steph76

As others have said, it is very different for different kids. My twins go to Speech Therapy and the therapist said boys are slower to talk in general and once he's understanding everything that said to him that would be most important.

Billiejo

Toddlers should be speaking by age 2 years.

a)Unless they suck a dummy during the day.

b)Unless thay are boys and have a chattering older sister.

*All will be referred to speech Therapy
Boys in the b category will not be Priority for S/T.