Help my child’s not talking!

What should I do?

This is the common cry on forums and mother/child groups up and down the land. Not many of us have enough experience other than our own children in knowing if what we as seeing is typical or not.

Below are three real life examples from parents…..

My son is 20 months old and he does not talk alot, we read to him and as he points to things we talk about what they are.  The Dr.  says all of his other communication skills are great but I am starting to get concerned that he does not say a lot of words, at time he will repeat what you say but not on a consistent basis.  He has said mamma and dadda for a long time.  Does anyone have some advice or some activities my husband and I can use to help this process?

It’s become obvious that my son is having trouble with speech, specifically stuttering and having a hard time getting the words to come out.  It’s been going on for about 9-12 months and I thought it would get better or he would grow out of it, but it’s just getting worse.  So much so, that last night he was crying because he couldn’t get the words.

I thought my daughter had a problem with her speech b/c at 1, she wasn’t talking, everyone including Drs. told me I was over worried, (she will talk) they told me ,( give her time !), at 2 she wasn’t talking, nothing, zip! Same scenario, im a worried Mom, she’ll talk when she wants too. At 3 still not talking, Drs. after Drs., even switched Drs., im still a worried Mom, after all Albert Einstein didn’t talk until he was much older than that! So at 4 my daughter started talking, but we had a prob., it sounded like Chinese, very weird, so I took her to the DR and demanded that they evaluate her! So they did and she failed everything! So she started speech therapy and she was talking in 1 yr., yes, at 5 yrs old she could finally talk. They asked me why I waited so long to have her tested, I was like, don’t even go there! She’s 11 and still in speech. I say if you think there’s a problem, make them listen to you! Do something about it. I wish I hadn’t listened to family, friends and Drs., they all were wrong! I knew something was wrong and I wish she would have gotten the help she needed sooner!

Raising Playful Tots is an Internet radio or Podcast available 24hrs a day . Host: Melitsa Avila of Play Activities. Download each episode yourself visit each show notes to do this or have iTunes do this automatically for you.

Week 13th June 2010: Talking Tots with Lisa Houghton. Lisa share answers to questions like those above in this weeks show. A must listen if you have a little one.

Raising Playful Tots show 29: Talking Tots

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