Watching your child’s language develop is a fun phase of parenting, they start to reveal more of their personality and ability to communicate with the world around them.

At First Words Speech Therapy, we recently received a question from a parent who was concerned about their toddlers speech development. Their 2 year old seems to understand what we say to them, but they aren’t talking.  This is a common issue, a child is babbling, but not using words.

Understanding Language Development

“Language” refers to the words we use, it is how we share our needs, wants, and thoughts.

Understanding the meaning of words

Putting words together to form sentences

Knowing how to talk, in a variety of situations, with other people

If a child’s receptive language skills are more advanced than their expressive language skills, they typically understand what is being said and respond nonverbally. A child can follow directions  but not use their words to communicate. For instance “bring me your cup”, wouldn’t need them to communicate clearly with words.

Language Development Consist of Receptive and Expressive Language.

Receptive language refers to how a child comprehend and understand the spoken language. It is important for a child to understand words and language to appropriately use them.

While, expressive language is how a child uses words to express themselves. This includes verbal and nonverbal communications, such as pointing or gesturing. This can be especially frustrating for a child, they know what they want to say, but can’t clearly translate into clear words.

If you feel your child may need extra help reaching their communication milestones, you aren’t alone. Communication milestones build on each other. When a milestone isn’t reached, they often fall behind.

This is why early intervention is so important, speech therapy can give them the support they need to reach these important communication milestones.

Here Are a Few Milestones For a 24 Month Old.

Are they using at least 50 words? Monitor your child to asses if their language seems limited.

Are they combining words into two word phrases, for instance, “go up” or “more juice”

If your toddler isn’t talking, but understands what you are saying, they may have an expressive language delay.