If you have a 2ish year old, how are they talking?

[american_mama]

I usually try hard to stay away from questions like these, because they usually make me feel bad, but if you have a child who is 2 years old or thereabouts, how are they talking? Single word sentences or more? How understandable is their pronunciation? Does their vocabularly grow tremendously every week or is it more gradual?

And how old are they exactly, in months? Boy or girl? First child, second child, or something else? I ask because I assume second children and later pick up language quicker, but I could be flat wrong on that. Can you give some examples of typical speech?

DS is 23 months old, third child, and speaks in single words, occasionally two words put together. Today he looked out the window and said "Snow all gone" and I was surprised at his recognition of the situation and him putting three words together. "Blue car" or "baby doll" or "kitty cat meow" are the type of thing he says daily. He leaves a lot of consonants out of words, so book and truck sound alike, snow and meow sometimes sound alike, cereal is "see-see." "Mobile," which he used to be able to say well, is now "nah nah" as is "yogurt," and for banana, he usually just flaps his tongue around his mouth. Those pronunciations bug me. He knows lots of words, more than I can think of, but nothing that knocks my socks off. It's not like he adds new words in leaps and bounds in a week or that he regularly surprises me with what he knows.

This all seems normal to me, but occasionally I hear what other children of similar age are doing and it seems like a lot more. His lack of articulation does bother me a bit, but I assume it's way too early to mean anything. DH reminded me of a story when DD1, a verbal child, was about 2 months older than DS is now, and how DD understood and replied to a conversation about her being sick. It was far above what DS could do now, and I would be surprised if he made such tremendous progress in 2 months to get to that point.

[ellies mom]

My youngest (girl, 23 mo) talks like your youngest. Her older sister was quite a bit a head of her and her speech was more clear as well.

[tny915]

My DD2 is 23 months old and is using mainly single words and signs to communicate. Most of the time I'm the only one who can decipher what she's saying, so her pronunciation is definitely not very clear. I just checked DD1's baby book, and DD1 in comparison was speaking pretty clearly and in 4+ word sentences by this age.

I'm not worried because I can tell DD2 understands a lot of what we say to her--what she wants to eat/drink/read, where her owie is, the things we do and places we go in our daily routine. She communicates with us fine, and even if it's non-verbal or a garbled word, she gets her ideas across very well. I can see gradual growth in her vocabulary, so I figure the all the words and sentences will come in time.

[codex57]

DS is about 2 and a half. He's in speech therapy. Vocab is fairly low, but improving greatly since speech therapy. Normally, one word sentences. Getting better at word sentences and we're trying to teach him the occasional 3 word sentence.

His articulation for the most part is pretty good. Speech therapist says it's very advanced for his age, which is strange cuz he's otherwise quite delayed. They normally don't worry about articulation until age 4. As long as the parents can understand, they consider that fine.

[MoJo]

DD, only child, is 21 months and not doing as much as OP's, even though she's very verbal.

Only two-word English sentences I can understand so far are bye-bye something or night-night something. However, she says lots of "sentences" that I don't understand at all.

She does seem to be learning a word or two each day at this point. We spend a lot of time each day where she points to something, and I tell her the word for it. . . but she doesn't usually try to say it. (This is a game she started about 3 months ago on her own). And in the past month, she's started pointing out connections. . . so she looks at a picture of our dog, says her version of the dog's name, then points in the direction of where the dog is. . . or the car, or the oranges, or the window, etc.

Articulation is terrible, to the point that I'm considering writing out a little guide for other care-givers (especially my mom, who will be watching her when her sister is born) so they can understand her.

Her comprehension is great. She knows the things in most of her books and can point to them on command, but she doesn't try to say the words for more than a third of them. She regularly follows instructions like "find your shoes and put them on" or "put that back where you found it."

[TwinFoxes]

My girls have been evaluated twice for EI, the last time 6 months ago and they didn't qualify. They are 21 months. Their two word sentences are "bye-bye" and "uh-oh". They are hard to understand, but no harder than most kids their age. But they really don't talk much at all, they seem to know only a few words. They sometimes get frustrated because they can't tell me what they want. They understand a lot though! I can give them instructions from across the room and they get it. S has long nonsensical conversations with herself, D has pointed and insistent conversations of GAH! when she's trying to get her point across.

Their cousin was very verbal at their age. I know they are getting compared SIL at Christmas said "ugh, that gah gah stuff would drive me nuts". Like what the hell am I supposed to do about it??? Her DD is the verbal one other SIL asked if they were doing EI. I try not to worry since their ped isn't concerned. But I will definitely have them evaluated again if they haven't improved by 24 months.

[bluestarfish18]

DS is just about 24 months and still hasn't said a single word. He babbles and grunts and sometimes points to what he wants, but no actual words. It's extremely frustrating. He is in speech therapy, but not too much progress yet.

[wellyes]

DD will be 2 in two weeks. She has limited sentences, mostly stuff like "I want book" and poor articulation. But she understands what I say. And boy is she adept at gibberish. It's only recenetly I realized that not all kids do that. She'll talk for 20-30 seconds straight using mostly made up words, with a "mommy" or two thrown in and some gestures. Weird thing is I can usually tell what she's talking about..... ususally explaining what just happened. The cat went downstairs, I just went for a walk with daddy, etc.

[SnuggleBuggles]

Mine turned 2 in Dec.. He can string words together sometimes, like, "uh-oh. where did it go?," or, "read book". But, a lot of the time he still does 1 word at a time. He has been trying to speak in paragraphs for months and months though and the words in his long passages are hard to understand. I was worried a bit but I can tell he hears well and can talk ok when he wants to. His vocabulary is on par with what it should be from my AAP book. He can repeat words back clearly...it's just that he doesn't either remember them or chooses not to incorporate them yet.

Beth

[elephantmeg]

That was what DS was doing at 2ish. DD is talking full paragraphs and is very clear. I really think it is somewhat a boy/girl thing. I've also heard that 3rd kids don't have to talk as much since their siblings will get what they want with minimal words or something like that.