Speech question - just curious

I actually have two questions.

For those of you with 18-20 month old kiddos, how many words are they saying? My girls are almost 20 months, 18.5 months adjusted, and I think they can say about 50 or 60 words each. But only 20 or 25 of these are spontaneous - meaning they point to something and say the word without me or dh saying it first. And they only have a few simple phrases, like "What's that" or "Look at that" or "I want that" or "Hi mommy or daddy."

I feel like maybe my girls are a little bit ahead in the talking department, but they have been very very slow in the moving department. Josie just started walking full-time independently about a month ago, at almost 19 months. And Bella isn't walking yet, but that's partly because she was born with clubbed feet and dislocated hips and has had surgeries and spent a lot of time not able to learn how to move. I've heard people say that kids who walk late often talk earlier, and kids who walk early often talk later. Anybody have this experience?

Thanks

Actually - they're 20 months old today!

 

My two walked during their 13th month and are slow talkers. They probably have a vocab of about a dozen words each at 27 months. They are starting early intervention for speech next week. Your kids do have a great vocabulary! That is awesome!

 

My boys walked very early and had as many words as your daughters at closer to 2 years-old. I think it makes sense that babies tend to concentrate their energies on physical or mental learning, so the walk early-talk late tendency would make sense to me.

On a side note, I had dislocated hips as a baby -- and am happy to say that I have absolutely no problems with my legs/hips now. I hope your Bella has the same outcome

 

Ethan walked at 11 months and is great in gross and fine motor skills. At 27.5 months, he only says a few words, but can say all the letter sounds. Jackson walked at 15 months and is good, but not as good, as Ethan in the fine motor department, but took off with speech right before his second birthday. He is off the charts vocab wise now and says 4-6 word phrases on his own.

Sounds like yours are doing great speech wise. When I brought up my speech concerns re: Ethan, my pedi said my boys can't be overachievers in every area -- LOL! We will have him evaluated for speech at 30 months if no improvement. He just said banana, nightlight, and another book this week. Hasn't said them again after the first time though.

Mendy

 

That sounds pretty much on track for 20 months. There is such a wide range, just about anything is normal at that age unless they are really not talking at all. Anywhere from 25 to 50 spontaneous words sounds pretty good to me. And I think it's also right on track for having a few multi-word phrases. For comparison, Amy started that at about 18 months, but Sarah just started it at 22 months, and they are both considered normal.

I don't know how talking interrelates with walking, though.

 

Well both mine walked at 13 months, but your girls are way ahead of my two in the speech department. I'd say mine have about 15 words that they say all the time, but now they are constantly repeating us and saying new words everyday. I had a speech observation for my two before they stopped EI back in August and they didn't qualify them, they were not 20% delayed in that and then they only had about 8 words. Your girls are doing great.

I have heard the same thing about walking late/talking early.

 

Well, I don't think that applies at my house. DD is 17 months old and has JUST started to take steps - like about 5 before falling. She loves to say "ba" and started rambling babble a couple of weeks ago.

DS has been walking for a couple of months now and is the better talker, which still isn't saying much. He has a few words that we can understand and then the consistent babble for things that we just can't understand.

Summary, mine seem to be walking/talking about the same time.

 

My girls are exactly the same age as yours. They were both walking just after turning a year old, but neither is really talking yet. They both say a few words (dada, bye, ball, duck, dog, uh-oh, mama-when they're mad). Tessa babbles a lot more than Regan. Tessa has always seemed to be ahead of Regan in the speech/vocal areas and Regan has always been ahead of Tessa with physical milestones. We voiced concerns about their lack of speech at their 18 month WBV and the pedi wasn't too concerned at this point. She told us that there is usually a language explosion between 18 months and 2 years. She advised us to wait and when we go back for their 2 year WBV to see how they are doing and if they still don't have many words that she will probably suggest they be evaluated. They clearly understand what we say...they just don't talk back yet!

 

In our house, dd has a much bigger vocabulary than ds. And she also is not walking yet. I don't even know how many words she has right now b/c she learns several new ones each day! Ds, on the other hand, is still not saying "mama" on a regular basis. He'll say it if I say it 1st (usually), but for the most part is very quiet. He's my mover, though.....can't stay still hardly long enough to eat.

 

In our case. DS started walking at 11 months but is now less of a talker. DD started to walk at 15 months and has more words. DS has about 15 words, tops. DD has more at about 30. They can copy saying more than that but I mean words that they say solo w/out prompting.

I am not worried about my babies speech since they are really picking up on it lately, understand about everything I say and can do small tasks that I ask them to do ("Where is the...?...Get the ....").

 

My boys started walking at 10 months and they have very few words now at 17 months. I had heard about the early walker/late talker link too - it's interesting to hear about other people's experiences. I have also heard that boys tend to speak later than girls and twins tend to speak later than singletons - my poor boys have a triple whammy against them!

 

My guys were talking about the same as yours at that age and everyone told me they were ahead. Once they'd reached that point, the development snowballed with them picking up new words constantly. You have to really watch what you say now

As for correlation to walking, I didn't have that experience. They are very physical boys who walked, climbed, jumped, etc. early to very early.

It's true that they can't be good at everything, though. We struggle with discipline issues.