My child is 27 months old and doesn't speak yet

[Florainter]

My son is 27 months old has lived in 3 different countries and has had no less than 3 different languages spoken around him his whole life.  He has excellent motor skills and can figure things out on his own but refuses to speak.  He yells, grunts,  pulls your arm or will demonstrates to you what he wants, but refuses to speak.  His vocabulary is approx 3 or 4 words.  He has no attention span when interacting with us.  We can't get him to focus on learning. He gets very frustrated when he can't communicate his wants and often gives up by crying. He seems very intelligent, he loves to play, enjoys television and plays well with other kids. I don't know if diet has anything to do with it but aside from bottles of milk and juice he only will eat noodle soup and french fries as well as candy, cookies etc.  Any help in this matter would be greatly appreciated.

[Kevin Kennedy, Ph.D.]

It's very unlikely his diet has any relationship to the delay in speech/language. Standing on its own, however, it certainly is high in carbohydrates, and it wouldmake sense to reduce that component of his diet. The surest way to do this is to eliminate such things as french fries, candy, cookies from the household. It's your responsibility to make available to your son healthy foods. Simply don't permit the 'junk' to come into the house. Relative to the speech/language delay, there seems little doubt that the many languages to which your son has been exposed would be a problem. It would be prudent to have him examined by a speech/language pathologist, to rule out any structural problems with his speech apparatus. Beyond that, my guess is that he will do much better once exposed to a single language over an extended period of time.

[justme§thedog]

also look up the apraxia website (search 'apraxia' and 'kids').  My friend's son never said a word until 32 months, same as yours except he was a mouth stuffer when eating.  The apraxia site was useful to suggest it was about motor control and sensation in the mouth and throat, etc.  My friend's son started speech therapy (weekly for 3 months) and now, at 5, you can't keep him quiet :)    He's still a bit behind with his pronounciation but he'll catch up.

the good news is that you describe your son as happy and well-adjusted otherwise....

good luck

[whelans5]

My son did not say much until he was 3.  He would grunt and moan for things and I would get it for him.  The speech therapist told us to put him in daycare.  After being in daycare for a month he started speaking and he was using complete sentences.  The daycare administrator said some kids are lazy with their speech and if you respond to the grunts he will keep doing it.  At the daycare he knew no one (including the other children) knew what his grunts meant and was thus forced to communicate using words.

[lovelife1974]

BOYS TALK LATE...I HAVE 4 BOYS!  CHECK HIS EARS.  JUST BECAUSE HE DOES NOT HAVE EAR INFECTIONS DOES NOT MEAN THAT FLUID IS INSIDE MAKING IT HARD FOR HIM TO HEAR HIMSELF AS WELL AS OTHERS AND PROPER SOUNDING OF WORDS.  MY YOUNGEST WENT THROUGH THIS AND I FINALLY FOUND A DOCTOR...#4...THAT DIAGNOSED IT AND HE GOT TUBES AND NOW TALKS VERY WELL AND HE JUST TURNED 3!

[skyepet5]

I am a 29 year old female and when I was 2 in a half and 3 years old. I refuse to talk the ENT told my parents to quit giving me what I wanted and make me ask for it, it took a while. Not only was I like that but I had and still have a hearing problem which delayed my speech alot, I had tubes put in when I was 7 and now that I am older I still have hearing problems I have holes in my eardrums in both of them and I refuse to have surgery to correct them. I  will soon lose my hearing slowing but surely. I statter alot and I talk fast just but I delayed in speech when I was younger and I was lazy baby by pointing at what I want instead of speaking for the item.

[parentalb]

A related discussion, speaking delay was started.