Autism

I’m in the same boat my son will be 2 in March and only says a few words and then he’ll speak gibberish

my son will be 2 in March, i had a feeling about this too because alot of my friends kids are younger than him, and we're talking a lot more than my son was. There is a speech toy on Amazon that'll read words back to you, i can not express enough how much i've seen that help him. he's now able to start putting words together and i've only been using it for a month and a half or so. it was recommended by his doctor that i repeat words back to him, but he doesn't like to sit and listen to me, so i figured a toy talking back to him would help, and it does:)

Talk to your pediatrician but I think most of the time, it’s okay. I had the same “issue” (I say that because we’ve been made to think every kid has to hit these milestones) we went to my pediatrician, she did an entire test. Can he make eye contact? Does he point to things? Does he do imaginative play? Will he come to you when called? Boys also take longer with speech. :)

@Nakaela I have the toy on his Christmas list on Amazon I’m so glad I put it on there a lot of people recommended it

I'm a pediatric occupational therapist. We tell people 50 words by 2 years. That includes things like choochoo for train or vroom for car. Is he exploring different sounds, if so that's good. My professional opinion is that I see a lot of kids with delays labeled as Autism which aren't. Of course without knowing your situation or him it's hard to tell. If you have a good primary care doctor ask them for a speech therapy evaluation. They can tell you if he is delayed or not. A month or so ago we used my son as a guinea pig and he only had a few words, they said he came up average so there is obviously a range!

Yea speech delays aren't autism. Be different if you had a laundry list like doesn't respond,doesn't look when being spoken to, doesn't point, doesn't sleep well, doesn't eat well, meltdowns (cannot be solved by getting their way that's tantrum), head hitting, stimming, rocking. Ect to name a few things. All this is normal but in autism the amount these behaviors persist is what leads to a diagnosis

I noticed kids who have their binkies still usually don't talk as much. There's science to back this as well. Another thing that affects speach is tv being on in the house and how much you read and talked to them and talked out loud when they were infants

Look into early intervention, it’s free in the US. My son has been in it for about 8 months now and it has helped him make amazing improvements on his speech.

I am starting early intervention with my kiddo and they come to the house which is great! You can self refer at regional center if you are in CA

@Vanessa thank you so much I’m actually in buffalo ny would I have to go thru my pediatrician to set that up