Two Year Old Not Talking

[chrissa1]

My little granddaughter, (the apple of my eye) is two and is not talking yet. Her hearing is perfect, she understands everything, can point to numbers up to 12, can point to all the colours correctly and is bright as a button. When asked this afternoon, "where's the moon", she pointed straightaway.

When asked "what is that" she says "da" but does say Bye Bye, Daddy and Mummy.

She is booked to see a Speech Therapist in Feb but I don't see that they can do that we aren't doing already. Any advice would be great.

[cazzz1975]

yep thats the one...there is nothing he doesnt eat :S

[madmaggot]

My daughter could not speak until she was taken to speech therapy (she was accepted at 2yrs 9mth) she did however try to speak and would say the correct number of syllables. Sounding like nananahhh, or nanahh.
When she had her pre-school sight test they told me to take her straight to an opthalmist as she couldn't see properly. I did this and her sight was perfect.
It turned out that she is dyslexic.
Dyslexics are often later in speaking.

[chrissa1]

Thanks all for your thoughts. I'll forward this thread to my son and his partner.
Hubby still in hospital being treated. He got an infection that had to be put right before he could start Physio. Thank you for asking.

[society]

Awww Cazzz just noticed your post. Miracles do happen, I hope your son is blessed with a speech one. x

[cazzz1975]

I hope so society, there is a tonne of cheekiness waiting to get out.

sorry to ruin your thread chrissa x

[chrissa1]

No worries cazzz.

[Hopkirk]

My daughter used to hardly talk at all.

Happy days!

Now we can't shut her up.

[Buenchico]

Just a thought for you:
A guy born in 1879 didn't say a word until he was nearly three and he couldn't really say anything intelligible for another year or so. Even then he had very poor language skills; he didn't achieve any degree of fluency until around the age of 8 or 9.

His name?
Albert Einstein ;-)

[ummmm]

Full time job....

Owen has mild autism and it's hard enough looking after him. He has improved with age though. I don't want to sound all sympathetic because they tend to have little quirks that always make you smile. Except when they eat the wall paper or paint your bookcase with nail varnish.....or wake you up in the middle of the night to make sure the front door is locked....Or spend an hour kissing you goodnight...like he'll never see you again.....

[DTCwordfan]

We had reading issues with No 1 (not with 2 who was away with hers just before 3). It wasn't dyslexia but rather "short term memory retention." She could read a maths problem, for example, and by the bottom of the question, (especially if a poser housed in a long question) she had forgotton the top part. Her raw maths was really good and she loved doing basic algebra when she was just 7. The solution, apart from plenty of reading to 'force' the wiring in, was to teach her how to break the question up and the use of coloured highlighters to allow her to come back and assess the whole question.

By the way, the daignostics for this were done in a Texan primary school and they were brilliant as to the time (and money) invested in her. All sorts of assessments done to identify the cause and they found her innate intelligence to be way above average. She is now doing pretty well in the system.

My point being - just be careful with assuming dyslexia - it may not be.

[cazzz1975]

lol ummm xx

[madmaggot]

Einstein was dyslexic.
And dyslexics are usually above average intelligence, extremely good at maths and often become engineers or the like.
Don't assume because someone has language problems that they're not intelligent.

[seadogg]

Must back up what ummmm and others have said. A 2 year old belonging to a neighbour's son had the same problem and she came to us old codgers with time to engage her in activities involving speech, like playing shop. She came on well when she had to use words. At 9, with a 7 year old sister she is very successful at school but they still comes regularly to play and be read to.

[ChocolatChip]

I'm studying psychology, and we have recently been dicussing childhood development, reading and language.
According to most recent evidence, dyslexia is no different to people with poor reading skills, regardless of their IQ. Apparently if babies are not talked to often, particularly with 'baby talk' then they do not learn the phonetic alphabet, and can never really understand them properly after vital stages. Thought I'd just throw that in there ;)
Is your family bi-lingual? This can often slow development of language quite a lot. However when they do begin talking, they develop a lot quicker than their none bi-lingual peers.

[madmaggot]

Well Chocolatechip; you must in that case have heard of Margaret Newton? She was (now deceased) europe's foremost expert on dyslexia and she diagnosed my daughter when she had gone into private practise in Worcester.
Dyslexia is a syndrome, most people will have one or more 'symptoms' to a greater of lesser degree. It is only classed a dyslexia when it is so severe that it becomes a problem to learning.
I taught my son to read when he was 3 and he was a fluent reader by the time he started school at 5. I raised my daughter in the same way and taught her in the same way but she was not able to learn in the same way. She had signs of problems by the time she was 18 months old.

[razza]

There are some bl***y adults who cannot speak properly.