I have a 36+ month old daughter she can only speak probably only 15 words is this normal?

Question

All my other children started talking at or before the age of 2 and i do read to them, everything is normal but its just that she wont speak that much and she even goes to daycare, but i don't know anymore.

Answer 1

That's not normal at all.

Have you had her hearing checked? I had a friend that had this issue and it turned out her son was mostly deaf.

I would take her to a doctor A.S.A.P. to get it check out. The sooner you find out what's wrong, the sooner you can take the correct steps to help her development.

Answer 2

I would have to say, No that is not normal. My little boy is 2 1/2 and he can hold an entire conversation, make up stories, and form very good sentences. Please contact a speech therapist. My friends little boy didn't speak a word until after he turned 2 and his therapist said that he could comprehend on almost a 3 year old level but he just didn't want to talk. All of the kids in his daycare didn't talk well. She worked with him more and with the therapist and he is 2 1/2 now and his vocabulary is much better. I hope that everything goes well.

O..... and you didn't say if she has a pacifier. If she does take it away and she will talk. My brother in law didn't talk well until after 3 because he had his pacifier so long. As soon as she got rid of it he started talking and never shuts up. LOL
Good luck.

Answer 3

It's not normal. She needs to be evaluated by a speech pathologist and possilby an audiologist. My nephew's hearing loss was not diagnosed until he was 3 and still only speaking a few words.

And it is not true what someone else said about most kids not speaking in sentences until the age of 4, most kids can string 2-3 words into sentences by 2 1/2 and speak in full sentences soon after.

Answer 4

That's not really normal... I would definately talk to a doctor and maybe see a specialist to see if she has a learning disability or something like that. It's better to know early on. And if she doesn't and the doctors say that she's ok, then she's just learning at her own pace. But most 2 - 2.5 year olds can speak a lot of words... my 2 year old nephew can tell you a story in pretty put together sentances.

Good luck, I'd try to find a doctor or someone to talk to about it!

Answer 5

I am a mother of one child. At 36 months you could tell he was sharper than average, but spoke very little. Over time he started to talk a bit more. It wasn't until he turned five and I switched pediatricians that we discovered he was tongue tied. I had no idea until the pediatrician noticed his "baby like" sound. I thought it was just cute sweet toddler talking. Anyways, they clipped the piece of skin under his tongue, and he went to speech therapy for one year, and now is a verbal genius. Bottom line: he did not speak much for the first four years because of this problem.

I strongly urge you to get it checked out by a professional soon. If your daughter has any form of speech disorder it will have significant impact on the elementary school years. (phonics and sounding out of words is difficult with any speech impediment)

Answer 6

You should definitely be concerned. While some children take longer to speak than others, there are guidelines to how many words a child should be speaking by a certain age. Have your child evaluated by a speech pathologist/behavioral psychologist. Insurances usually cover an initial evaluation. There may be an underlying problem. By age 3 the child should definitely speak more than 15 words. Good luck.

Answer 7

It's certainly not normal but I wouldn't blame yourself for it like some other posters have tried to do....while I agree that it is very important to read to a child, a normal child would still have a much larger vocablulary simply from hearing others speak so whether or not you spent much time reading to your child is most likely not the underlying issue. It concerns me that your pediatrician has yet to refer you to a specialist to diagnose the problem. Hopefully it's not a medical issue but make sure to get your child tested as soon as possible so that if there is a problem you can start addressing it properly....hopefully she's just a late blooomer....good luck.

Answer 8

People learn at thier own pace so if you 3 1/2 year old is already saying SOMETHING then thats great. Most childern don't use complete sentences until about 4 years of age. Your daughter is completly fine and not stupid. But if you think that something is seriouly wrong she may have diffuculty speaking in general so if you would like call the doctor and just get some more facts. It dosen't hurt to ask.Best wishes.

Answer 9

Hey,
The ability to read is vital for success. It helps your child succeed in school, helps them build self-confidence, and helps to motivate your child. Being able to read will help your child learn more about the world, understand directions on signs and posters, allow them to find reading as an entertainment, and help them gather information.

Here you can find a step-by-step online program that can help your child learn to read: http://readingprogram.toptips.org

Learning to read is very different from learning to speak, and it does not happen all at once. There is a steady progression in the development of reading ability over time. The best time for children to start learning to read is at a very young age - even before they enter pre-school. Once a child is able to speak, they can begin developing basic reading skills. Very young children have a natural curiosity to learn about everything, and they are naturally intrigued by the printed texts they see, and are eager to learn about the sounds made by those letters. You will likely notice that your young child likes to look at books and thoroughly enjoys being read to. They will even pretend to behave like a reader by holding books and pretend to read them.

For more info visit http://readingprogram.toptips.org

Answer 10

Wow my daughter is only 2 and she can hold full conversations in several tenses adjectives verb conjugation etc etc.

Probably just bad parenting or genetics don't worry about it.

Feel better now?

Seriously though kids develop at different rates some make sudden jumps some learn gradually I would'nt worry too much just keep talking to her and encourage her