We’ve been doing speech therapy for the Striderling for the last few months; at age two, his receptive language skills are almost right on track, but his expressive language has been at the level of a 9-12 month old. This can be OH so frustrating. When we started the speech therapy he wasn’t even shaking his head “yes” or “no” to things, which made it rather difficult to determine exactly what he wanted. I think we would have been in a harder place if it weren’t for the sign language he’d learned…. milk, help, eat, more, water, and daddy being the most common and helpful.
No one can quite give us a good explanation for the specific whys of his delays; poor motor control and poor body awareness are the two most likely things. With his hyperparathyroidism being undiagnosed for a year, he had trouble with things like muscle control. I think it’s easy to forget that speaking actually uses quite a few muscles (and by quite a few, according to Wikipedia, we mean about 100).
Although the speech therapist has been doing almost exactly what we’ve been doing at home his whole life (interactive play, book reading, animal sounds, etc), he HAS made progress and it’s been wonderful. It’s arduously slow progress… an example: for months he would say “mmm” for moo moo. He has now progressed to “mow” (like mowing the lawn), but doesn’t do moo moo. Mommy is “mi!”… mama is “ma”… daddy is “da.” He now shakes his head no (and says, “No!” the way any strong willed toddler might be expected to 
) and just started nodding yes… in a cute, hesitant, cautious way. He only nods it once and it’s easy to miss if you’re not looking.
I will admit to sometimes getting frustrated and discouraged in this area. I want him to be able to easily share everything that he’s got going on in his own head. I want us to have conversations that don’t involve bouts of 20 questions and tears on one end or another by end of them. Still, this is also an exciting time for our boy. One dear friend sent us an amazing song as a gift after I shared some of my concerns ~ the song Shine from the album of that tile. It’s an encouraging reminder of how precious and unique each child is… the Striderling has his own timeline, and that’s okay… nothing can stop him from shining.
After all, this is also the child who didn’t walk until he was seventeen months old and just yesterday he was jumping off of furniture in the living room, sticking the landing about 50% of the time. He’ll get the speech too… in his time.
(I love that photograph of him… he’s adorable, for one, and I love the way you can see the way he’s got some mild hypotonia going on… he rocks that low muscle tone. 
).
7 Comments
Shine is fabulous! When my daughter didn’t walk until 10 months old it got a lot of play time here as well!
And her doctor just told us she was behind on speech as well (though she’s ahead of where her brother was at this age.. So…)
Lord willing, his language will blossom in his own time.
At 28 months, one of my children (who didn’t have Striderling’s early challenges) had only said ‘ma-ma’ (several times), ‘da-da’ (two or three times) , ‘pa-pa’ (potty, mimicking, once), and ‘boo’ (blue, mimicking, once).
Even after two years old she did not make any meaningful sounds for days at a time, even with lots of encouragement. But it was obvious that she had no trouble hearing or understanding.
At 28 months, I disciplined her one evening for some disobedience. She looked at me with the sweetest look, but with tears in her eyes, and said, “Surely, goodness and mercy will follow me all the days of my life.”
And from that very night, she spoke as well and at least as fluently as any child her age.She also has one uncle on each side of the family who did not speak until after three years old. Both uncles started speaking not with single words but with words strung together into meaningful phrases.
She also read unusually late. With pretty intensive instruction, she went from just starting to successfully sound out c-a-t to reading at an 8th grade level during the months from 9 1/2 to 10. By the time she was 14 she read anything of any complexity and chose very difficult books.
This brings joy to my heart. And it reminds me of when, having worked long and hard for many many months with a pupil, I began to think that maybe, just maybe, he was on the verge of being able to read. That was at the end of the summer term. When he returned just 6 weeks later he had read ‘Lord of the Rings’!
I have a very talkative 18 year old son who didn’t say a single word until he was two years old. Didn’t say some words until he was five including his name. Your little man has been through so much, take heart he is doing so very well. And I love that picture too, he is such a cutie!
Maybe he just doesn’t like certain words.
My firstborn turned 2 and had only said hi, bye, yes, no and excuse me. The last had only been said one time, and the rest were said only very occasionally. He didn’t say more than 3 or 4 words a WEEK. He had good receptive language, followed instructions, obviously intelligent, could obviously hear, and so we didn’t worry about it. We didn’t pursue speech therapy or really work on encouraging him to talk anymore than we would a typical child. So on his own, at 26 months, he had 10 words. At 28 months, 50 words. At 30 months, he put 2 words together. At 34 months, he put 3 words together. By 4, his speech was perfectly normal for his age. And at 11 years of age, he can talk and talk and talk and talk! Child #5, also a boy, has followed a very similar path, except that at just-turned-4, he’s a bit harder for outsiders to understand, but is continuing to progress and we’re not worrying about it. Both perfectly normal little boys, just on their own time table. Speechwise, your little guy doesn’t sound too unusual to me.
Heather (mom to seven children ages 11 and under)
After three very verbal early talkers (speaking in complex sentences before age 2), I had a child with medical issues that delayed speech as well. I wasn’t used to non-verbal toddlers. We used a few signs, but if I’d known this child wasn’t going to speak much until 3-1/2, I’d have used more. Early speech therapy is great–wish I’d had some, as we are still dealing with speech issues (the child is 8). When he’s pestering you with questions and irrelevant chatter at age 10, you’ll barely remember that you once longed for him to speak.
Lots of prayers!
Hang in there! My perfectly healthy boy would only say “duh!” until just after his 2nd birthday. Now (a year later) he talks non-stop.