Somebody at the playgroup has a nineteen-month-old doing sentences. Yours has four words, two of which are for the cat, and you have started counting in the dark.
The spread at this age is genuinely enormous, and most late talkers catch up without any intervention. That's true and it's also not much comfort, so here is what to do with the waiting.
Narrate more, quiz less
The instinct when words are slow is to test for them. What's this? What's that one? Can you say ball? Every question is a demand, and a child who is already finding words hard will start avoiding the whole exchange.
- Instead of
- What's this? What colour is it? Can you say apple?
- Try
- Big red apple. Crunchy. I'm cutting the apple.
- They need to hear the word attached to the thing many times before producing it once.
- Instead of
- Say please and you can have it.
- Try
- Milk. You want milk. Here's your milk.
- Withholding an object until a word arrives makes talking the price of things, which slows it.
- Instead of
- No, it's not a dog, it's a horse.
- Try
- Horse! A big horse.
- Recast rather than correct. The right version lands; the failure doesn't have to.
- Cut background noise. A television on quietly in the room measurably reduces how much anyone speaks.
- Get face to face and slow down. Words arrive out of watching mouths as much as hearing sounds.
- Wait after you say something. Count to five. Late talkers need a longer runway, and adults fill it.
- Count gestures as language. Pointing, waving, pulling you by the hand — these predict speech and are worth celebrating out loud.
Fewer questions, more commentary. You aren't testing a vocabulary, you're stocking one.
When to stop waiting
Ask for a hearing test first, whatever else is happening. Glue ear is common, it's often silent, and it's the single most fixable cause. Don't let anyone talk you out of the test on the grounds that they seem to hear you fine.
Then ask your health visitor or doctor for a speech and language referral if any of these fit. Referral isn't a diagnosis. Waiting lists are long and the assessment is useful even when the answer turns out to be nothing.
- No babbling by around twelve months, or babbling that stopped.
- Fewer than about ten words at eighteen months, or fewer than fifty by two.
- Not putting two words together by around two and a half.
- Losing words or skills they previously had — this one is worth a same-week appointment.
- Not pointing at things to show you, or not following your point.
One more thing worth naming: late talkers often have more meltdowns, and it's not a coincidence. A child with a full head and no words is genuinely stuck. Signing a handful of words — more, finished, help — takes the pressure out of the day and doesn't slow speech down, whatever your uncle says.
