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My son (similar age) calls both me and his mum "Daddy". He also has a habit of calling all animals Cows or Sheep. Like Erica says in the comment, it's pretty standard. They've learnt a single word which at the moment means "Parent/Adult/Someone that's not Me". As they learn more words they can elaborate on the distinction. Just reinforce the difference ...
22
Usually children learn the words they need to know to get particular types of attention first, and use them most frequently.
So while there may be many reasons for her to choose saying "baba" and "dede" more frequently than "anne" one possibility is that you and grandpa don't pay as much attention to her as her mother. When she wants her mother's attention,...
20
I'm married to a Speech Therapist who owns her own clinic, so while she's really the best to answer your question, I can tell you from my observations and discussions with my wife that your child would not likely qualify as "delayed" based on your description. We also have a 2 year-old who's speech developed slower than his older sister's so that also gives ...
15
While there have been studies comparing infant preferences between "baby talk" and "regular talk", finding that "baby talk" was preferred, I'd probably lean more towards the results presented in this study which has controlled for positive affect in speech and found that the preferences followed whichever speech had more relatively positive affect. They've ...
14
If you say dadadadada and she repeats it, she is parroting. If she sees her dada and says "dada", then she is talking. Basically, talking is saying something that reflects a shared reality. Children parrot before they talk.
Her first word will be when she says something appropriate (usually a noun) spontaneously. Bye (if she's leaving someone), dada when ...
13
Ignore it. Your child will most likely outgrow it if you ignore it. It sounds like a submissive behavior -- a way to say "I'm just a little child" without saying so out loud. You might reflect on why the child insists on telling the world "I'm very childish" in these interactions. Something is making this child want to project the fact that he/she isn't ...
13
If you want to encourage his development, spend time with him and talk to him like you would an adult. Speak to him as though he can understand everything you are saying. If you need to go to the gas station or grocery store, take him with you and explain what is going on while you're doing it. Let him hear you speak with other people. He may not like ...
13
You need to have your son assessed by a licensed Speech-Language Pathologist. It is important that your son gets treatment for his stuttering before the age of 11, regardless of the cause. Studies indicate that after 11 years of age it is much harder to remediate. Keep in mind that 11 is just a typical number based on a standard population. You can find an ...
12
Yes, it's normal. The speed of speech development varies widely, but all that's expected from a two-to-three year-old is that they form two-word phrases and speak sufficiently comprehensibly to be understood by their parents, which your son seems to be doing just fine. Boys also tend to be slower to pick up speech than girls. Here's a handy milestone ...
12
Please see this PDF called the Denver Developmental II. It represents normal milestones in development and is used around the world. The white area in each rectangle are the normals; the blue areas are the "late but not off the chart yet". Off the chart indicates a need to probe further.
As you can see (I've added the arrows at 22 months), by now he's ...
12
The saying I heard since I was a child was "walking by one, talking by two." She'll get there! My son called me 'ball' for quite a while after he could say 'Daddy,' but who gets the lion's share of the kisses and snuggles? :)
If you have serious concerns about her development, see your pediatrician. However, this internet stranger's opinion, based on ...
11
This is the sort of issue that happens all the time with toddlers and preschoolers: when sufficiently well rested and fed, they're polite and well behaved, but when something's amiss things go poorly.
When this happens with us, we address it by triaging the problem first, and then make a choice based on that result.
Why did he refuse to ask nicely?
Because ...
11
This is no big deal, and you shouldn't sweat it. My daughter is almost 2 1/2 and calls her aunt "Uncle Meghan," and everyone thinks it's hilarious.
Both of my kids have gone through the same as yours, and I cemented the fact that my name was not "Mommy" by jokingly saying, "I-AIN'T-CHE-MAMA!" -- which evokes laughter and slowly brings the point home as ...
11
Hi and welcome to Parenting SE! Many children do not start forming sentences until 18-24 months.LINK
If you have been to your doctor (and you should if you are concerned), then probably it is still early and there's time before there is anything to worry about.
Children develop at different rates. There are things you can do to encourage language.
Baby ...
11
As of now, there's no indication of a larger problem. You haven't been correcting her so looks like she's just continuing it out of a habit.
Start responding to the questions in the correct manner, not in the manner she expects. I mean, if she says 'Is it hot ?', you should reply 'No it's not , do you think so ?'. When she says 'I will take you out to a ...
10
Some answers are suggesting to correct thus: "Dada not Mama!". For an infant it is much better to correct more simply, without the negative: "Dada!"
The negative is an advanced mental construct that the infant has not yet acquired (as illustrated by the "Not-Pippa" example given by one writer here).
In the same way that "Don't think of the blue banana" ...
9
As a mother and speech-language pathologist, I understand the concerns of speech and language development.
Some general information to know is each sound of our language has a different range of ages in which your child should correctly produce the sound.
By age 8, your child should be able to produce all sounds of the English language, unless second ...
9
Most speech concerns are not real worries until a child is 5 or 6. If children continue to have a lisp when they begin elementary school they are generally referred to a speech specialist to work on those sounds.
As much as a lisp in a toddler is not a concern, children learn language from imitating what they hear. It is never too young to speak clearly ...
9
Anongoodnurse's answer is spot on, but I wanted to add a couple of things.
First off, don't forget we as humans are amazing at pattern recognition, to the point that we see it where it doesn't belong. You'll hear her 'say' lots of things that seem like perfect words, once, but not again - because she didn't really say it, she just made a sound that your ...
9
To some extent: yes, the questions may well be too open-ended. Not even exactly too open ended, just asking for information that he doesn't necessarily have. Better is to ask for more specific categories, and better still is to not worry about any of it: get him to a calm place, then let him tell you on his own what's wrong, if there's anything actionable, ...
8
The approach we took with our child was and is to just ask for clarification, or casually correct the word. she responds to something with "uh-huh" and I reply either "I can't understand you, can you please say yes or no?" or if I was sure of her reply, "How about yes?"
I have found that making a huge big deal out of it is not especially productive.
8
If you are worried, you should have his hearing checked first. It is not uncommon for Small children to develop a hearing impediment caused by ear infections, which will have an impact on their speech development.
8
My niece used to say "mommy", "daddy" and the name of her older brother. The dog was "puppy". She took a long time to say "grandma" but they all were suspicious that "grandpa" was actually referring to both grandparents because one day she was taken to one of those zoos for kids and all the animals where "puppy" (so "puppy" was actually the designation for ...
8
As I'm sure your OT and SLP have told you, there's a lot of natural variability in when kids hit language milestones, and late language emergence is not always cause for concern.
Your child --- with no expressive vocabulary at all at 3 years --- is an unusual case, though, which means it's hard to calculate statistics on trajectories for children with his ...
8
For the most part, kids learn what they hear. They're not literally parrots, but it helps me to think of them that way sometimes.
So, the best way to "train" them out of speech patterns is simply to not use those speech patterns yourself. Consciously avoid using "like" as a filler, and that will reinforce better speech patterns.
My ...
7
Most mispronunciations are not something you can correct by telling the child they are saying it wrongly.
One of my children had a persistent use of the n sound where l belongs (eg eating nunch) and I kept asking my doctor who kept saying n is one of the last sounds for children to get right.
I kept countering that if my child was saying "wunch" like the ...
7
When raising our baby, the changing table was one good place for practicing sound mimicry. I would make a sound, and she would try to imitate. We started with vowel sounds, then work on consonant sounds. Each time she figured out how to form her lips, teeth and tongue to make the sound correctly, I would respond with excitement and laughter. She loved it, ...
7
That's consistent with my experience as well. If you're comparing him to the kids at preschool/daycare, if he's only been there a month he's going to have a hard time fitting in right away - that's normal. Nonetheless, my son was at daycare since 6 weeks old and still didn't play with others much at two.
Two year olds - and even many three year olds - ...
7
What I’ve been taught is to let the child try, so long as it isn’t frustrating them unduly. As with any skill, language recall comes with practice, and shortcutting that is not helpful. However, if it is frustrating the child, help is appropriate, as otherwise the child will simply avoid the interaction.
What I usually do in similar situations with my ...
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