My 2 years and 4 month son is not talking.

[Curiosmom]

Hi,

I am a little bit concern about my 2 years and 4 month old son, who was born 12 weeks early.  He doesn't seems to understand commands and is not talking. He is starting to say some words but no very clear.  At home, we speak two languages (Spanish and English).  The 6 or 7 words that he pronounce are in Spanish.  The only thing he ask me for is his milk. He also doesn't feed himself, I have to give him everything in his mouth.

He loves to play with me, with his dad.  When he meets with my friends kids, he plays a lot and share all his toys.  He really enjoys being with others children

What is going on my boy and what can I do to help him.

Many thanks

[margypops]

What is happening is my guess is possible spanish is spoken a lot in your house, and although children do learn languages well it sometimes takes time for them to pick two up, he is getting mixed messages remember . Also stop feeding him, its you enabling it, put finger foods in front of him, say nothing no encouraging words , walk away and let him get on with it, if you are sat at the table eat your own food, when hes hungry and he sees you are not spoon feeding him he will eat.,he not doing it because he doesnt have to you are feeding him .If you want more info o0n the speech check out our speech and language forum on Med help. good luck

[tiredbuthappy]

It sounds like he is doing OK... however, since he was a preemie, I would get a speech evaluation just in case. It certainly can't hurt. Talk to your pediatrician, or you can contact your school district and inquire about early intervention. They will do an evaluation for free.

While it is true that bilingual children sometimes take longer to speak, they ultimately end up with greater language skills than monolingual kids. So, feel confident as you expose him to both languages. If you are stronger in Spanish, then you should probably speak primarily in Spanish to him. He will learn English in school and from friends.

I absolutely would work on getting him to feed himself. The best way to do it is to stop doing it for him. Give him foods that are easy to self-feed to start.  You can go out and buy a special utensil set (they have ones with characters) to encourage him to get started.