18 Mo Won't Talk

My nephew also goes through the school district fro speech theropy. His parents first brought him to his regular doctor who then refered him.

Hi Piper

Well, I would say there is need for concern. Some kids talk sooner and some later, but he will have a difficult time catching up by now. I believe you can go through the school district for speech therapy even though he is not of school age. This happened to a friend of mines daughter and she had therapy and is in good shape now.

You may want to have his hearing checked as well. Does he respond and do what he is told when asked?

Best of luck.
C.

Piper,

Most kids are talking by 18 months. My younger child had a few words at 18 months but didn't really start "talking" until about a month after that. My older child (who is 5 now) never started talking (until he was over 3 and after 1.5 years of speech therapy). He later got an autism diagnosis. So sometimes talking late is normal and sometimes it is a sign of a bigger problem. In Las Vegas, there is a service called "Nevada Early Intervention." It is a state agency, the evaluation and all services are free and you can self-refer (just call and make an appointment). They will give him a hearing test and a comprehensive evaluation. Language skills are about more than just talking, it is about receptive language skills (the ability to understand verbal communication), expressive language skills (the ability to speak) and also non-verbal communication (pointing and that type of thing). If you are concerned, I highly recommend an evaluation. If there is an issue, the sooner you start therapy the better. And if there isn't, you can quit worrying about it.

:-)T.

Is your child point out objects for you to look at?

Is your child holding up an object like a toy to show it to you from across the room?

Does he respond by turning his head and looking at you when you call his name from another part of the room?

Does he look at an object that you are pointing out to him and talking about?

These are all pre-linguistic skills and early forms of communication. If your child is doing all of these things with relative ease, then I really wouldn't worry. He's on his way to talking but just hasn't made that leap yet. There is no definitive answer to when a child should be able to talk -- there's just guidelines. If your child is not doing any of the things above without a lot of concerted effort on your part to gain his attention, that still doesn't mean that he will never talk but he probably does have a speech delay, for whatever reason, and you should request that your pediatrician refer him to a speech therapist to be evaluated. I highly recommend Elissa Mandel at Henderson Speech Language & Henderson Center (on Eastern at Wigwam). She is a wonderful, wonderful person and a absolutely fantastic speech therapist. She really helped me to better understand my son's speech delay and is really on top of her game as far as the whole science of liguistics.

If you would like more information, feel free to e-mail me off-line.

L.