20 month old very limited speech and arm flaps??

[Trace166]

I wonder if someone can help?  My daughter is 20 months old and is a very happy, loving little girl and well behaved.  However, i have been concerned for sometime regarding her limited speech.  Firstly, she did not consistently babble until about 11 months old, but did not have a wide range of babbling until she was about 14-15 months old.  She only really says 'gink' or 'dink' for drink does try to immitate some words, i.e., piggy, car, daddy but does not refer to me as mummy or mum mum.  She does point at pictures in books, features on your face and at some body parts that she knows when you name them, but has never pointed to the birds in the sky to get your attention and say 'look at the birds'.  Her receptive language, seems pretty good, naming parts of the body, where is your ball things, rub cream into mummy's face, things like that.  She does sing - well what is mean is sings the tune - so tone is there but the words aren't - each word for the song is ga ga ga.  She will do things like put her hands on head and say 'heh' for head and to get you to sing the song, 'head and shoulders, knees and toes', which is really cute.

The other that bothers me is her arm flapping.  When she is excited, or likes what she sees she arms flaps and has done this for a long time.  She has good eye contact, sleeps and eats well, not intolerant to anything - so should i be worried??  she knows the purpose of most objects, phones, hair brush, talc etc.

i know that some children don't really talk until they are two and i know alot of children arm flap when excited - i am just concerned about the combination of these two factors?  

I worry myself so much - i have another baby on the way at the end of the year so more stress to add to the load!!

I have raised this with my Health Visitor and she has got her an appointment to get her hearing tested, just to rule that out - i don't think she has a hearing problem.

Any comments, would be gratefully appreciated.  Thanks xx

[Tressie1]

My son is 19 months old.  He says a few words, by-by, boba(bottle), eat-eat, and dadee.  Should I be concrned.  He walks, runs and may imitate you.

[Trace166]

Hi,

Thanks again for getting back to me.  Your words are reassuring.  We had a hearing test done with her yesterday to rule out that being a cause, but as i suspected, everything was just fine.  The community paediatrician said he feels it is something that will come in time, but if things do not improve to go back and they will take things from there - whether that means speech therapy i don't know.  i have a very supportive and understanding health visitor of which a son of her own had to have speech therapy so if things don't improve, i think she will send my daughter for the therapy.

No, definately no speech delays that we are aware of - hopefully her speech will take off like a storm when i least expect it!

Thanks so much again!

Tracy x

[Akbari]

hi Tracy! It seems every thing is OK! for more confidence visit a speech therapist too!
another point is that speech delay can be caused by heredity. ask about yourself and your husband's speech improvement in child hood.

good luck!

[Trace166]

Hi,

Thanks so much for your repsonse!! Yes - i see where you are going...her play seems very good, she will build blocks of up to five, she will get objects and stand them upright, she will sribble with a pencil, turns pages in a book, uses a shape sorter - not necessarily the right shape in the right space.  She will pick up a large pillow and walk around with it, pull a toy dog around by it's lead, will push a wheelie toy - things like that, so in my opinion, she does these things well.  She doesn't really feed herself properly with a spoon, will finger feed, but as for getting food onto the spoon and into the mouth seems impossible, unless it is a thick yoghurt that sticks to the spoon anyway!  

Thank you for your professional opinion.  To be honest, i always felt that as her babbling was a bit late forming fully, i had that instinctive feeling that she was going to struggle with speech.  But as i say in my first posting, i was worried by the combination of the arm flapping with delayed speech - autism, things like that came to mind.  If you have any further information to give me following my response i would be grateful!

Thanks, Tracy x

[Akbari]

hi Trace, I'm an occupational therapist working in the field of pediatric neuro rehabilitation. by your report it doesn't seem that your child has a special problem. just maybe a short delay in speech. how is her movement and playing? is she active and creative in playing?
sometimes these children need to have more education and help to find themselves.
I think a speech therapist can help you. it seems that your small daughter has a normal  IQ. I suggest you to pay more attention to her hands. how does she use them? can she lift every thing proportional to her age and does she play well with cubes, pencil and to page through?