My 18 month old daughter does not say any words - she can make a variety of animal sounds (baba for sheep, bloes her nose up for pig, pants for dog, purses and lips for fish, brays for donkey!), she will say 'huh huh' when asked how do u laugh, she points to a LOT of body parts but voluntarily can say ony 'dede', baba' jeje, 'esh'. She was always a quieter child more intersted in animal sounds etc - didnt babble till very late yet started waving bye-bye at 9 months, Anyway I took her for speech eval and the person there said that she \"; may\"; have apraxia but cannot confirm it.. she also recomended speech therapy. I have talked to so many people/moms to get an idea...I am still unsure My daughter will not address me as 'mamma' or my hubby as 'dada' - if I ask her 'how do u say dada', she will reply 'dada' AND look at her daddy BUT she wont address him. Another example, if I say - where is the TV/microwave - she will LOOK in the correct direction - but won't point to it with her finger out.. now if I try to outwit her by saying 'where is the TV' in a room without a TV she will look around but not fix her eyes on the object - so she KNOWs that there is no TV to look for. But if she wants to go out, she wont point to the main door...so my worry is that she does not attempt to communicate atall on her own for things she wants (milk/water/going out) yet if i ask her' where is your wrist' - she will show me her wrirst! One more thing - I can sing - twinkle twinkle litle star' and she will act it out - and make a star shape with her fingers to indicate star, same thing for 'if u r happy and u know it' - she will do clap/stomp/beep nose/hurray, also the marathi song 'ithey ithey bas rey mora' she will act it out... and yet simple things she wont do! One thing she started doing lately which concers me is when I ask her to get something - like shoes/ball/ she will pick it up and then CRY loud.. dont know what that means..as tho she is scared. This morning,I said \"; bring me the ball'- she looked for the ball amidst her toys, picked it up, threw it at me and started crying...she used to understand shoes/socks- these days she wont get me those objects. And yet when i say lets brush our teethm she will start brushing her teeth with her fingers in mouth - so she knows some stuff and fails on others.. Abt voluntarily speaking - only baba and dede and sometimes 'esh' - NOTHING MORE! I am at my wits end..and really feel hopeless.Please ler me know your thoughts
rink replied. Hi i cannot comment on ur daughter but my son at 18 months did not say a single word, going to be 3 in feb 2007...he started to say single words at 2.3 yrs ...now his vocabulary consists of 100-200 words ...recently he has started to combine 2-3 words like 'want water\" \" go from here\" \" my house\" ...i feel all kids are different to be judged by a single thumb rule...my son goes to a private preschool where there are kids who speak so fluently and some kids are like my son speak in monosyllables....i feel ur daughter is too young to be judged...at least u can wait till he is 2 yrs before going for evaluation...did u talk to his doctor..what is his/ her opnion...my son's all developmental milestones were a bit delayed but he catches up ( walked independently when was 18 months old ) ... i discussed this with my son's doc and was refered to a speech therapist who feel we have to give him TIME ...u shhould keep talking to ur child whether he responds or not...soe kids speak early some late..i tried to toilet train my son when he was 2...but he did not respond ...only after he waass 2.5 yrs , he showed interest...then in a span of 2-3 months he is fully toilet trained.kids will respond to walking/talking/toilet traonong only when they are interested ...we cannot fast forward the process....