Late Talkers: When to Seek Help
Not yet talking?
Don’t Delay Getting Help
When should you seek help?
Information taken from Hanen.org
We strongly recommend that you seek help from a speech-language professional at Capital Area Speech if your child:
By 12 months
- doesn’t babble with changes in tone – e.g. dadadadadadadadada
- doesn’t use gestures like waving “bye bye” or shaking head for “no”
- doesn’t respond to her/his name
- doesn’t communicate in some way when s/he needs help with something
By 15 months
- doesn’t understand and respond to words like “no” and “up”
- says no words
- doesn’t point to objects or pictures when asked “Where’s the…?
- doesn’t point to things of interest as if to say “Look at that!” and then look right at you
By 18 months
- doesn’t understand simple commands like “Don’t touch”
- isn’t using at least 20 single words like “Mommy” or “up”
- doesn’t respond with a word or gesture to a question such as “What’s that? or “Where’s your shoe?”
- can’t point to two or three major body parts such as head, nose, eyes, feet
By 24 months
- says fewer than 100 words
- isn’t consistently joining two words together like “Daddy go” or “ shoes on”
- doesn’t imitate actions or words
- doesn’t pretend with toys, such as feeding doll or making toy man drive toy car
By 30 months
- says fewer than 300 words
- isn’t using action words like “run”, “eat”, “fall”
- isn’t using some adult grammar, such as “two babies” and “doggie sleeping”
3-4 years
- doesn’t ask questions by 3 years
- isn’t using sentences (e.g., “I don’t want that” or “My truck is broken”) by three years
- isn’t able to tell a simple story by four or five years