We had a ‘developmentally behind’ daughter who is an independent person with her own personality – she is almost 5 now and we’ve been worried about her since she was 12-18 months old. I would say we worried about her but also thought she’s just independent and will learn at her own pace. My advice is to use the resources available to have her assessed and get therapy for her, maybe not quite yet but in a few months. This does NOT mean that anything is ‘wrong’ with her but just that you are trying to help her develop which is a parent’s job. She will probably just develop on her own, but support would benefit ANY child, frankly. Get her hearing checked. Have her evaluated for early intervention services (speech, occupational and/ or physical therapy). Our daughter was young during COVID so we ended up starting Zooms with a speech therapist when she was 18 months old to teach us how to interact with her to support her speech development (using fewer words, speaking slowly, using visual aids, etc.). She then had therapies outside of preschool and eventually spent a year in an amazing special program run by our local school district (we were very lucky with that). She will be in kindergarten next year in an integrated special ed/mainstream setting, which isn’t what we dreamed of but is the right thing. Maybe in first grade she will be in a mainstream classroom, maybe not. Maybe she’s just eccentric and will end up going to MIT. Either way, I feel it’s been very important to her development to get therapy while she’s young and her brain is most plastic, rather than leaving it to chance. She’s so young that she’s never even noticed. One thing we never would have stood for is her getting a ‘formal diagnosis’ at a young age; maybe for some kids that’s right but not in her case. You know in your heart as a parent what is right. Luckily, no one has ever said anything like that to us. Good luck – I hope it doesn’t come to this but wanted to share my experience. It will be hard to accept if you get her therapy but you can rest easily in knowing that you are doing everything you can to help her be her best self. Thinking of you!

I’m glad you’re trusting your gut, but I know it hurts to keep hearing that something is wrong when you know your kid is fine and just needs time. The milestones, like the growth charts, are on a continuum and some kids are going to be faster, slower and median but almost all of that is actually normal across a population. So keep listening to your gut and if your gut says “find a new pediatrician who see’s my child for who she is” trust that instinct too.

Ours is almost 2 and he still doesn’t have a single word! He does sign a lot though. He even makes up his own signs. We take him to speech therapy once a week. It’s a free resource for us, so I agree with the others that it’s worth asking your pediatrician about. It definitely helped ease our worries knowing we have a professional helping and guiding us through this. But sometimes delayed speech is genetic—my four brothers and I were all delayed speakers! We speak just fine now 🙂

Mama of 15 month old-

We have three kids and 2 of the 3 were later to talk than is typical (with only a handful of words before age 2), and our doc wasn’t concered and generally said she doesn’t recommend any intervention until after age 2 and never flagged this as developmentally behind. My father (child psychologist) and friend (speech and language pathologist) were concerned so we did request an evaluation by early intervention for our first kiddo (she started talking more literally the day they arrived so didn’t need services). If this is just about speech it seems like there is a wide variation in concern by doctor, but if you have any concerns based on the doc’s eval, for us it’s free to request an early intervention assessment and they come to your home, so it was relatively easy to set up. With our 3rd kiddo who has followed the same pattern we just waited and he’s just started talking more (he just turned two) so just seemed to follow the same pattern as her and we weren’t concerned.

I second and third Early Interventions referral. If your pediatrician is so worried, not sure why they haven’t referred already. You could ask them to refer or you can do it yourself! My kiddo had a motor delay and it helped immensely with catching back up. We saw PT, OT, and Nutrition. They come to your house amd it’s all paid for by state funding. In Colorado, they also have funding for equipment (we got a learning tower and a nugget couch through it) and funding for respite (they pay a babysitter for you to go to your own self care). She just graduated at the age of 3 with no delays! My friend’s kiddo was also in it for a speech delay and his progress has also been amazing with speech therapy!

To the Mama of the 15-month-old: I am so sorry that you have these worries. I don’t know your daughter, but I can tell you that my son just turned 15 months and until about 2 months ago he hadn‘t spoken a single word, not even Mama. He called me „dada“ and did understand a lot, but speaking – nope. My best friend told me that kids learn to speak when it becomes necessary – because they want to articulate themselves and people can‘t read their needs nonverbally anymore. Now my son is in daycare (where he is really happy), daily surrounded with kids and adults who love them but can‘t always tell what he wants just by looking at him. He now knows 10 animal sounds, calls me Mama and his dad Papa (we‘re Germans), he can say the German words for tea, meal, broth, banana, strawberry, apple, hedgehog, caterpillar, getting dressed, bye, book (in baby pronounciation, of course, but you get what he wants to say). An he understands a looooot more and imitates us. There‘s a new word almost every day. I taught him most of them, but I think that daycare played a role in him understanding that it’s time to speak now.
So: If your daughter doesn‘t speak, it might be because she doesn‘t have to. Because you know her and your needs. But the time will come when she wants to tell you something, and then she will. The most important thing is what you wrote in the beginning: that you know she is fine. Doctors know their science, but parents know their kids.

Father of a delayed child here, and I can empathize. Speech was a major concern at 12 months, 18 months, 24 months, 36 months….you get the idea. I heard so many people tell me “Don’t worry, he’ll just develop at his own pace!” That turned out to be largely unhelpful advice. He’s 3.5 now, still not talking, and very likely autistic.

If someone had told me an autism diagnosis would be the end result when he was 1 year old, it would have felt like the end of the world. It was truly the “worst case” in our heads. But you know what — it’s fine. Even the “worst case” is fine. He’s a great kid, usually affable, curious, loves his parents. You’ll get by, no matter what the outcome. But do get the relevant screening done and apply for the appropriate support. Early intervention is key, even if it turns out to be ‘nothing’ in the end.

Lots of great advice has already been shared – so I’ll add a book recommendation! Check out ‘End of Average’ by Todd Rose (or at least Google ‘pathways principle’). It’s an insightful and reassuring read that will help assuage common worries about our kids not being ‘normal’ or ‘average’ — mostly because there’s really no such thing!

I either should be a lot more nervous or, to your point, every kid develops differently. Both my kids have been late language learners. My oldest is going on 6 and is advanced in her kindergarten class. My youngest is going on 2, understands most things and doesn’t really talk more than animal sounds, noises, and sign language. As I said I could get a lot more worried but everything else is looking good so I’m just letting him take his time. I get the anxiety though. It’s hard to judge between what the doctor tells us and what we know sometimes

Oh, 15-month-old mama. I wish I could give you a big hug. Trust your gut here. My son didn’t have any words around that age. We started speech therapy around 14 months at our pediatrician’s recommendation (on Zoom due to COVID!), and I felt good we were doing something but deep in my gut I knew it was a waste of everyone’s time. At two years, he started daycare with good receptive language but no intelligible words. We had seen the audiologist and hearing tests were normal, but as soon as he started daycare, he got ear infection after ear infection. At 26 months, he got tubes surgery. Three weeks later, he said “dada” for the first time! Within months, he was speaking full sentences. (In the interim, we switched to a pediatrician who said he doesn’t worry much about language until the age of 2-3.) My advice is to 1) trust your gut, and know that 2) development can be beautifully asynchronous. The brain is a magical organ that can heal itself after major trauma, and in my son’s case crammed 2+ years of linguistic development into a few months. Let your little one surprise you, and just monitor your gut. If there’s action that will help you sleep better at night in the meantime, feel free to ask for resources, but skipping it is also okay.

Oh my goodness, my daughter didn’t say any words at all at 15 months and my doctor didn’t do anything like that – we could tell she understood us and we eventually she started talking when she was ready and hasn’t stopped since.

I will also add my recommendation to check out early intervention services where you live! They are free (in many places) and there to be accessed if needed, and can be a helpful and relatively low stress way of getting support or information if further services are needed. What also might help is to establish what your next steps might be, if only to manage your anxiety by having a plan. Ask your doctor: “so is it reasonable to check in about this in x amount of time, is there anything else I need to be looking out for?” and then establish exactly who to get in touch with/ how you will access a referral for evaluations of needed. My own issue with trusting my gut is figuring out whether what I really want is reassurance that things will be okay or if there is something else that I need to address. And while it is true that milestones are really ranges, it is also true that sometimes a delay is within the standard range… until suddenly it’s not. Both of my kids benefitted from early intervention, and my younger ended up needing more significant support than we initially anticipated (and I will admit I did not initially worry too much because I had been a late talker and so wasn’t surprised when my kiddos were as well). I remind myself that my role is to support my kids where they are and get them the resources they need to thrive, even when this means their needs are different from what I might have initially envisioned or anticipated. And I will also add that getting this early help does not mean that your child will be pathologized or on the road to any sort of diagnosis, many early interventions and services (even special education/related services in schools) are often accessible based on evaluated need through the early years. There may not be a need to worry but there’s also no harm in knowing and getting the help if it’s needed!

I feel like different pediatricians are so different with milestones. My currently 21 month old wasn’t saying 5 words at her 15-month appointment and our pediatrician wasn’t worried and said let’s give her more time. At 18 months she was saying about 5 words and clearly understanding a lot (should be saying 50). Still, the pediatrician wasn’t worried. We’re now waiting for the 2 year appointment and my daughter is definitely growing her vocab rapidly although not connecting words or saying sentences. Her understanding of things is also growing. Listening to Emily Oster’s podcast about language development helped me a lot. There’s the mental development of language, then there’s the physical development of moving your vocal cords just right and pushing air through just right. That second part can take a while for some kids.

That’s really stressful to get that message from the pediatrician but without any actionable steps and without feeling like they’re on the same page as you. I would seek out a second opinion from a different pediatrician, and then maybe seek out speech therapy if they don’t have a word by 16 months. Early intervention is incredibly helpful and even if your child doesn’t end up “needing” it, then at least you don’t have the regret of waiting and then realizing they did need it. Some kids are just late talkers, but others really need support, and you don’t know which group you’re in until later when you’ve missed some of the window for early intervention. I thought my son was just a late talker, but it turns out he has childhood apraxia of speech (rare) and waiting for us would have been the biggest regret of my life. Instead, we started therapy early and he is now fully understandable when he talks, plus we learned sign language (75+ signs that speech therapy helped me with) early on so that he didn’t fall too behind in language and was less frustrated. Everyone’s situation is different, but I will always be thankful for early intervention, and I hope you find a doctor that creates less stress.

Being “two months behind” seems like a non-issue to me, when the range of “normal” is so wide. My third kid has been delayed on a number of milestones, including crawling (11 months), walking (17 months), and language (he probably also only had 5 words at 15 months). But he is still developing just fine and seems to be hitting his milestones at his own pace, which seems to be part of his personality. If your pediatrician is only making you feel sad about it, and not helping you see what’s going well, I think it’s time for a new pediatrician. Our pediatrician has been very reassuring, but also has engaged in two-way dialogue about interventions like speech therapy. As a result, we’ve tracked his language closely and started speech therapy at 26 months.

To paraphrase Magda Gerber, childhood is not a race. <3

I’m just posting to say I hear you and we are in the same boat. It’s easy for everyone else to say do not worry, and ‘they are fine,’ but when you see other children doing all the things, earlier or when your child ‘should’ be is very difficult to manage (at least IMO)! I had a very traumatic birth with my first — in Early Invention until he was three years old. Today, at almost 6–you would never even know! But now with my second (and perfectly ‘normal’ birth), she is delayed. Sometimes it feels like we can’t win, but on the same token we have two beautiful, smart, and healthy kids. Hang in there. Sending much love from PA!

Here is a perspective for your future, like 25 years from now: my husband and I have four adult children and we were just longing for “the good old days when they were toddlers or grade school aged.” Broken hearts, stalled careers, fertility concerns and “failure to launch” are the reality of grown children! I clearly remember wondering when the constant worry would end and I have realized that it never does! Parenting is a life long journey; the issues change but the “worry bots” never go away.

Re: developmental milestones. At our 12-month visit with our pediatrician last week, she told us families/parents can refer themselves to Early Intervention in their area. My 12-month old is behind with moving around, basically. Our pediatrician explained that Early Intervention is free for all kids 3 and under. When I called our nearby Early Intervention office, they told me they will assess my baby and then, if she scores below a certain threshold in any one of the areas, then we will be eligible for free services like physical therapy or speech therapy or other things. I found this to be a reassuring thing! We scheduled an assessment with Early Intervention because we want more answers than “wait and see.” Good luck!!

This sounds normal to me! My daughter was exactly the same at 15 months. Now, at 23 months, she’s had her language explosion and can say about 100 words and 3-4 word sentences. Toddlers understand words long before they can vocalise them, she’s just taking it all in and learning 😃

I had the exact same woe when my toddler is a little above 12 months. My pediatrician suggested for an early intervention. I tried a speech therapist but my gosh, is she expensive and her waiting time is loooong. I sent her to daycare, bought one of those speech courses online, saw my first-time mon mistakes, added the tips to the routine, and, after few months, voila, her progress was exponential (not that i tested it mathematically). To be honest, I don’t know if it’s the speech intervention or just that she wasn’t developmentally ready until few months after, but, boy, I’m grateful I did something.

Good for you – writing in about the developmental concern to let the “village” chime in! The whole premise behind early intervention is that the earlier you intervene, the better the outcome. You can simultaneously schedule a hearing test, ask your pediatrician for a lead test, and get going on early intervention. The early intervention therapist will teach you how to work with your child on communication, which may involve sign language, spoken words, and/or a communication board of some kind (don’t fall for teaching her to sign “more” before she learns how to sign nouns – because “more” will become a crutch for whatever she wants and will delay learning other signs or words, “more” is an adjective and the natural progression for language is to learn nouns first). This is well worth the investment of time and effort, because communication is key to every other aspect of behavior. You got this!

As many others have chimed in here, perhaps get a second opinion from another pediatrician, and find out if your state offers free evaluations/early intervention services before the age of 3. My son also pretty much had no words at 15 months (he would sign for milk and all done, would say “dada”, “ga” for car, “hi” and that’s about it) and the pediatrician wasn’t concerned. He had hardly any words at 18 months too (he was saying some additional animal noises like “baa” for sheep and “oo” for woof for dog). She still wasn’t concerned. Again at 21 months, same thing (he was saying mama by then, and “moo” for cow, and also NO, but not much else). I was, because I was also comparing him to his peers that we saw on a regular basis, and his speech was behind compared to his friends. I know, not a good measure of anything, but it’s so hard to not compare! He had a language explosion a month before he turned 2 – and within a month was putting 3-4 words together, which temporarily reassured me. But we had A LOT of trouble understanding him (even at home) and at daycare his teachers also said they had difficulty compared to others his age, and he would get frustrated. I also had some concerns with his behavior (his pediatrician did not) – occasional violent tantrums, major food refusal, lots of hitting, etc. So I scheduled an evaluation (which was great), and he scored within the average ranges and didn’t qualify for early intervention services. They said at his age, understanding only 50% of his speech was still within the norm, which was a surprise to both myself and his daycare teachers. That evaluation was 2 months ago, and his pronunciation has slowly been improving. I also just took him to a dentist that specializes in oral ties to properly evaluate his mouth (the speech therapists said it was a little unusual that he says “y” for “v”, so for example vacuum is “yacuum”) and everything was normal. For his behavior and overall development, they commented that he was self-directed and had a particular temperament, and tried to give some tips/advice for reducing tantrums and getting him more interested in food, and some other things. But again, it was all “normal” for his age. I do wish I had done these things earlier, just for peace of mind for myself. If your pediatrician has concerns but isn’t sharing any resources with you, please try to find another doctor.

My son is currently 17 months and has no words. Our pediatrician has been very chill about it, much chiller than me, but it’s something I go back and forth worrying about. On the one hand, he’s so perfect and wonderful and delightful. He babbles constantly. He loves balls and pretzels and standing on the couch and trying to snuggle our cat to death. On the other hand, where are the words?!!!

Ultimately, for me the fear comes from a place of wondering if he’s going to be OK. And when I answer that question directly, I feel a lot calmer. Of course he’s going to be OK. He has parents and grandparents who love him and want what’s best for him.

So, who knows what this delay might mean. It could be nothing. It could be an early indicator of autism or something else. Either way we will love him and it’s going to be OK.

I have four kids. Each one of them was a bit behind in hitting certain milestones and “ahead” on others. Most of it came out in the wash.

I do distinctly remember however that I was worried about my first kid but having enough words and he turned out very eloquent and chatty. My second I also saw a delay and told myself not to worry. We just finished the years of speech therapy for him for an articulation delay.

That is the question I’d ask your doctor. Is this something that needs intervention? That’s really where the power in recognizing a kid is develop outside the expected range. Until it’s clear enough that some sort of therapy would be helpful, I’d ask your doctor to just keep it to themselves.

Regarding your late-talking 15-month-old.

Our oldest son was a late talker. His listening comprehension was seemingly good or even above average, but he just didn’t say many words. Sounds like a similar situation you’re in?

Our pediatrician recommended “early intervention speech therapy”. At the risk of sounding judge-y towards your pediatrician, I think your pediatrician should have recommended it to you too! (But maybe your child needs to be a couple months older…)

Every state is different, but I _think_ all states have an Early Intervention program, and they are heavily subsidized by the state. Maybe free entirely?

Anyway, we signed our son up for these speech therapy sessions per our pediatrician’s recommendation, when our son was maybe 18-20 months old. It was during COVID, so he did them on zoom. Soon enough he was caught up with his milestones.

So maybe give Early Intervention Speech Therapy a try. I think you need a referral from your pediatrician, so ask him/her about it!

P.S. Now as a 5-year old, he is still a very quiet/shy boy, so I suspect even at that young age of 18 months, it was already his personality to just not talk much. Maybe would have progressed fine without speech therapy, but no regrets, speech therapy was a good experience!