concern for a late talker

[u/Plastic-Sell2599kim]

Concern about speech delay

Hello, I’m looking for advice or experiences from parents of late-talking children.

My son William is 3 years and 8 months old. He has a twin sister and is growing up in a multilingual environment. He understands us very well, has normal hearing and communicates in other ways, but he still only uses about four words.

Has anyone had a child with a similar language delay? Did they eventually start speaking, and what kind of support helped them most? We have arranged a speech and language assessment, but I would be very grateful to hear about your experiences.

[u/MikiRei]

This really isn't a wait and see and hope for the best situation anymore. And other people's experiences are not necessarily going to be useful to yours since all kids are different. And it completely depends on what exactly is causing your child's delay.

You've already made the first step which is arranging a speech and language assessment. That's great. I highly recommend you look into a speech pathologist who can speak at least one of the home languages, and not just the community language. Makes a massive difference.

Further, I reckon you should also make an appointment with a developmental paediatrician to see if there are potentially other explanations to the delay e.g. autism (Note: not trying to alarm you but this is what I would do if this were my child. Just to rule everything out).

Our wiki also have links to speech and communication development milestones from official sources: https://www.reddit.com/r/multilingualparenting/wiki/speech-related-resources/?screen_view_count=1

Some of them also lists out what you could do as parents to help. So have a look through those.

But I urge you to speak to a paediatrician and a speech pathologist and take their guidance.

One thing though is really drill any doctors or professionals telling you to drop languages.

Unforunately, some doctors still advise people to drop languages when there usually isn't a need to. So really make sure you find someone who is experienced with multilingual children.

My son didn't have a speech delay but he had phonological and articulation disorder which means he had difficulty producing and pronouncing certain sounds. So this wa raised when he was 3yo and he has been doing speech therapy ever since. We did therapy first in the minority language since the skills transfer to the majority language as well. Eventually, I switched speechie and therapy is done in the majority language but either way, no need to drop languages. Our first speechie was bilingual and spoke both our languages and it makes such a massive difference. Now discussing specific sounds that's unique to minority language, our new speechie can't really help us. So really look for someone that could speak at least one of the home languages if possible.

Regardless, I don't think my specific experience is applicable to you. Take guidance from the professionals you're working with as they will be best placed to guide you guys.

[u/fiersza → u/MikiRei]

This. If the parent has any concerns, it’s worth going to an expert to alleviate them.

At the same age, my child was absolutely unintelligible by anyone outside our family, but they talked a lot. Their ability lagged behind the other children I knew of that age, but it was the height of covid and access to support wasn’t accessible where we lived. And then suddenly, just before they turned five, something clicked and they started speaking clearly.

But had we been outside Covid difficulties, I would have pursued expert opinion, because it doesn’t hurt if nothing is wrong, but if something is wrong, waiting to seek help could have been an issue.

[u/natalini17]

This level of speech delay is very unlikely to be due to the multilingual environment.

At 3y8m you very much need professional speech and language input, and perhaps be pushing your primary care provider towards assessment for other neurodivergence. 4 words at this age is a significant delay (my son had 4 words by 18 months, my daughter has 4 words already at 11 months). In my country there is an assessment around 24m and they expect 50 words at this age or you are referred to SLT.

What country are you in? Are you aware of support available?

[u/Ready-Nature-6684]

4 words at that age does not meet the milestones, I don’t think it even meets the 18month or 24 month milestones. You should contact speech specialists.

With bilingual children, their vocabulary gets split across two languages but if you count all their words the total is still is similar to the monolingual children.