Speech Delay & Late Talkers

It is common, but common is not the same as fine. By two, most children use 50 or more words and join two of them together, such as “more milk”. A two-year-old with only a handful of words is worth checking rather than waiting out — the check itself is short, and it ends in reassurance more often than not. Compare your child against the full two-year milestone checklist.

As a broad guide: one or two words plus plenty of babble at 12 months, around 10 to 20 words at 18 months, 50 or more words with two joined together at two years, and short three-to-four word sentences at three. These are guides, not deadlines — the pattern over several months tells you far more than any single birthday.

Many late talkers do catch up, often somewhere between two and three, and often in a rush once the first handful of words arrives. Some do not, and there is no reliable way to tell in advance which group your child is in — not from us, not from a paediatrician, and not from the relative whose cousin spoke at four. That is the whole argument for checking early: being wrong about waiting costs your child months of easy help, while being wrong about checking costs you one appointment.

Good understanding with very few words is called an expressive delay, and it is the most common shape late talking takes. It is a hopeful pattern, because understanding is the harder half to build. Two things are worth ruling out: speech so unclear that it is being heard as no speech at all — see articulation difficulties — and a child whose word comes out differently on every attempt, which is a question about childhood apraxia of speech. Do also check the understanding honestly; many children who “understand everything” are reading routine, gesture and a helpful older sibling. If the gap is still there at three or four, ask about developmental language disorder.

Yes, and it is the first thing to rule out. Even mild or come-and-go hearing loss — the kind that follows repeated coughs, colds and ear infections — can muffle speech during the exact months a child is learning it, and a child who hears you today may not have heard you last winter. Read more about hearing loss and speech. If a hearing test comes back normal but your child still loses the thread in noise or in long instructions, ask about auditory processing difficulties.

No. Growing up with Urdu and English — or Saraiki, Punjabi and Urdu together — does not cause speech delay and does not slow a child down. Mixing two languages in one sentence is normal and is not confusion. One thing matters when you count words: count them from every language together, not only the English ones. A child with 20 Urdu words and 30 English words has 50 words. More here: does bilingualism cause speech delay?

Losing words or skills a child already had is the one sign we ask parents never to wait on. It is called regression. There are ordinary explanations — a spell of illness, a new baby, a house move, a patch of hearing loss — but it still needs a professional to look sooner rather than later, so that the ordinary explanations are confirmed rather than assumed. Tell your child’s doctor, and get a speech and language assessment booked rather than watching for another month.

Get face to face and down at their level, then leave gaps. Name the thing rather than demanding the word — say “milk” as you hand it over, ten times a day, instead of asking “say milk”. Keep your sentences one or two words above your child’s. Comment instead of testing: “big splash” beats “what is this?”. And pause after you speak, long enough to feel awkward — that silence is where a first word turns up. Screens are not something we would blame any parent for, but words are learned in back-and-forth with a person who answers, and a screen never answers, so protect a few short screen-free stretches for play and mealtimes. Not sure whether to bring it to us? Start with the free 2-minute developmental check.