‘Mama. Ruck! Mama. Boon!’ This is my son’s way of saying ‘Mum, look! A truck and Mum, look! A balloon!’.
This guy really loves trucks and balloons. Throw the occasional bike in and this is how our day goes.
To other people, his speech is a jumble of grunts, but we know that ‘ti ti’ means thank you and ‘umpeas’ means please. It’s very cute, but I wonder when his words will actually sound like words.
He’s only just turning 2, so I’m not worried yet, just fascinated by the difference between my daughters’ speech at the same age and his.
I have a video of her speaking to the camera when she was about 22 months old and she is talking about how excited she is about her upcoming Dora party and how much she loves her doll, Lonnie.
Her speech is clear; she is using multi-syllable words and stringing sentences together. Not only is her language more advanced, she seems to have a greater understanding of concepts.
It makes me wonder if it’s a boy/girl thing. Or a first/second child thing. Or just two different personalities.
Studies have shown that on the most part, girls talk sooner than boys. They enjoy looking at individual faces from birth and mimicking expressions. This makes girls better listeners and imitators than their brothers, so they understand language earlier. Boys generally like looking at moving things, like a mobile.
At 16 months, the average girl can speak 100 words. Boys usually have 30 words at the same age.
I think it’s also about confidence. My daughter has always been more confident than her brother. This may change as they get older, but he is a little unsure of himself and a bit more sensitive.
According to the experts, kids should have around 50 words by the age of 2 years, and be able to speak in 2 – 3 word sentences. My son is a long way off this milestone.
But boys do develop speech a little later, especially when they have a motor mouth sibling like he does.
Diane Paul-Brown, PhD., is an early childhood speech expert and believes that every child develops at his or her own pace. "Some children develop language at a faster rate than others," she says. Her advice is to not panic, but if you’re worried, see your doctor or paediatrician.
Apparently 15% – 25% of kids have a communication disorder, and that most of them will grow out of it, or need a bit of intervention to get them on the right track.
Speech therapists say we can help our kids with language by speaking to them a lot and reading to them. We can ask them to repeat words back to us. If you want to work further with them, there are some great apps to help speech develop.
They are great for speech development and are a fun way to learn.
I’m happy with ‘ruck’ and ‘boon’ for now. When my son gets more words, I wonder if he’ll ever get his voice heard under the constant stream of consciousness coming out of his sister’s mouth. This girl loses her voice most days from overuse and barely stops speaking to eat, drink or breathe.
Good luck, buddy.
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