The boy speaks: what my late-blooming son taught me about deep acceptance
My second son did not say one word until mid-August, on holiday, when he was almost eighteen months old. We were standing outside the front of the guest house where we were staying in Pécs, Hungary and all of a sudden he said 'aaarrr' while gesturing towards the cars racing by. At first, I wasn't completely convinced: was it actually a real word? Or just a sound effect? Or a one-time thing? But then another car went by and the same gesture and same word: 'aaarrr'. After he did it a few more times, I started to believe that he might be saying his very first word, and I almost started sobbing with relief.
I've been considering writing about this topic for the past few months, but I couldn't bring myself to do it. I guess I was unconsciously waiting for the time that I could add in that 'until' in the first sentence, and provide the happy ending. It felt too raw to tell a sad, anxious, scary story and not have any way to tie it up in a comfortable way. So, today you have the story - with, I'm relieved to inform you, the happy ending. I think this is an important tale to tell - for me, it demonstrates two main things - that anxiety is very real and very debilitating, and that kids really do grow and develop at their own pace (everyone in their own time).
Note:
This is a long and winding essay of an article. I have intermingled my experience with the resources I found helpful, along with the lessons I’ve learned. I start getting to the resources about halfway through - so, if you need some immediate help with your late-talking child - feel free to scroll down and get stuck into the resources right.
The seeds of anxiety
I don't even remember what my eldest son's first word was. All I know is that they - the many many words (and even phrases) he was saying by the time he was 18 months - came a lot earlier than my second son’s words. I want to say around a year. But it's not even the words themselves that are that important/significant - it's the pointing. It's the waving. It's the shared attention (joint attention in the speech pathology lingo). It's the ability to mimic other people's actions and sounds. It's the interest in other people.
It's all the things that my second son just was not doing - things that he should have been doing from a much earlier age.
[See this fantastic table here, as well as the corresponding podcast episodes, on all the prelinguistic skills a baby/toddler must master before they are developmentally ready to start using words].
Okay, so maybe you're sensing some kind of anxiety breaking through. And that's exactly what it was. It all started one terrible night when I (stupidly, and against all reason) decided to Google '15 month old not pointing'. Because that’s what I was initially worried about; not so much about the lack of words. Woah, if you want to get freaked out as a parent of a not-yet-pointing toddler, Google that phrase. What do you get?
Top result: 'Is lack of pointing a sign of Autism?'
Next: Anxious parenting discussion boards about lack of pointing (more references to autism in these message boards)
And next: 'Baby pointing: such a crucial developmental milestone'
'Reassuring communication: is my baby autistic?'
And it goes on....
Of course, after seeing those results, I reversed the query to: 'signs of autism 15 month old’.
The first article that comes up is: ’16 Early Signs of Autism by 16 Months’ (I’m purposefully not linking it here, the reason for this will become apparent). In the introduction it says: 'The early signs of autism can have a cascading effect on brain development and lead to significant social, language, and cognitive deficits, as well as challenging behaviours, if they’re not caught early.' → Okay, after reading that line, I officially started freaking out, and continued to read on with a sick feeling in the pit of my stomach. I read through each 'sign' and found it hard to convince myself that he wasn't showing them. If I was being honest, I'd say that at that age (15, nearing 16 months) he was showing about 50% of these signs. The article ends with some ‘recommendations’:
'Any one of these signs may not be a problem. But in combination, they may signal a need to conduct a screening or diagnostic evaluation.'
'If your child shows 8 or more of these early signs, ask for a referral for a diagnostic evaluation.'
And....then all craziness broke loose. I googled, googled, googled, and then googled some more. I watched videos of kids who had autism - seeing more and more of the signs in my own son. I started testing him - would he respond to his name? Was he following my point? Could his reaching for something be classified as pointing? Was it a good sign that he was babbling even though there were no words? I analysed other toddlers on the bus - was that girl who only looked about 11 months old really saying words? It got to the point where I was crying when I looked at him, convinced he had autism, convinced he was never going to speak, that my lovely son had been snatched away from me....it was intense, and all-consuming, and I thought of little else for about a month.
Then things started to change
Well, I kind of forced things to change.
First, I started getting my mental state in order:
I read this book: The Gift of Maybe by Allison Carmen (which I covered in an Evergreen Bookclub if you want a more in-depth discussion of the principles), and began to change my mindset. I asked myself: what if the worst possible scenario (he really does have autism, he will never speak....) is happening? I cried and cried, catastrophising the future and what this would mean for my life, his life, our family's life....but then I began (as Carmen suggests in the book) to define some Maybe Mantras that could get these thoughts under control:
'Maybe I am strong enough to handle this'
'Maybe this is the way things are meant to be'
Even: 'Maybe this will bring unimaginably good things into our lives'
Also: 'Maybe this doesn't change anything at all about my son. He is still the same sweet boy that I've been loving since the moment he existed.’
I found this awesome lady on YouTube (Nurturing Neurodiversity). Faye has an autistic son who is pre-verbal. Her videos saved me. She doesn't sugarcoat things, but she has the most unbelievably positive and accepting attitude. She made me realise that, no matter what was going on with my son, it would all be okay.
I also started listening to two different podcasts: Tilt parenting and Adventures in autism. I was trying to learn as much as possible - from people, parents, who had been through (are going through) all of this. Seeing that they were not only surviving, but thriving helped me immensely.
Then I heard Greg McKeown on the Tim Ferriss Show. He spoke about the scary experience that happened with his teenage daughter who one day out of the blue stopped speaking.
And then I did some practical things to encourage my son to begin communicating....
I read a book called: It Takes Two to Talk from the Hanen Centre. This was great - not a developmental milestone chart in sight. There was no, ‘they should be saying x many words by x age’, just simple communication categories: your child is either a discoverer, communicator, first word user, or combiner. There were loads of practical recommendations in this book, with the aim of eliciting communication as the goal (not just words). It’s a pricey book, but it’s worth it.
Then I came across a wonderful Texan speech pathologist called Laura Mize on Youtube (Teach me to Talk) and it changed everything. She has a whole podcast with so many in-depth episodes, jam-packed not only with practical ideas that you can start applying immediately, but also a lot of background on how communication and language develops in babies and toddlers. This enabled me to really see the areas that needed working on with my son: I needed to go back to basics and work on shared attention - he had to want to communicate with us (+ a whole bunch of other things) - before he would even come close to saying words. I now probably know way too much about communication development, but this podcast, this lady, is an absolutely amazing resource.
I also read a book on Floortime - a therapy approach for children with autism that focusses on connection and communication in a very natural way. Reading this book (Engaging Autism: Helping Children Relate, Communicate and Think with the DIR Floortime Approach by Stanley Greenspan), was also a helpful way to learn more about autism (and make it less scary), and also to discover even more practical approaches to encourage communication. This book really empowered me and continued to remind me that I could take concrete actions to improve the situation.
I also found lots of really useful articles about speech delay and autism on the Alpha Mom website. One of the writers, Amy, has her own blog (Amalah), where she has written about her own experiences with her first son.
What happened next? (The happy ending)
Well, he started 'pointing' - at first it was more like gesturing with his hands towards things. He started handing me toys and other random things (showing me things, which is a sign of joint attention, and another prelinguistic skill). He started playing with his toys properly (pushing a car along instead of throwing it around aimlessly). He ceased most of his self-stimulatory behaviours (throwing around toys, opening and closing the cupboard door, repeating the same babble phrase over and over).
His first word came. And then soon after that, more words came, and they haven't stopped since. I've lost track of how many words he has now (at 20 months), but it's probably at least 50. He picks up words easily, with new ones appearing almost every day. He does not shut up. He talks all the time. He tells us about everything he sees. He points at everything - both to show us stuff and to request that we say the word.
It's like he's a different child compared to a couple of months ago.
Some factors that I think are significant in his delay and his progress:
The pandemic and not having much social interaction with people outside the family (which I discuss in-depth in this article).
Not attending childcare.
He was also learning to walk at the same time (he finally started confidently walking and giving up crawling at almost 19 months).
Implementing some of the strategies from Teach me to Talk - I don't know where we'd be now if I hadn't listened to all those podcast episodes.
Travelling during August - I think taking him out of his normal environment, and giving him the opportunity to interact with lots of new environments and people, made a huge difference to his language development.
Some advice
(From someone who went down an embarrassing number of internet rabbit holes and worked herself up into a complete, crying mess) - for those who may be going through a similar situation:
Do NOT Google! Or at least, acknowledge that Google is only going to tell you about very general ('a 15 month old should have mastered these skills...') or very specific ('my son didn't point and now he has been diagnosed with…') situations. Neither of these are particularly helpful when you are Googling to find out about what is happening in your specific situation.
Give the child that is the source of worry time to grow - there is so much variation between how babies and toddlers (and children) develop. Try not to compare too much to other children, or what their siblings were like at that age (I made that mistake! ‘My first son was pointing at 11 months…’). Every child is different. Just because they vary from the developmental milestone norms, does not necessarily mean that there is anything significant going on (although, it can really feel very significant at the time!). They could simply be late bloomers (as was the case with my son). Nothing terrible is going to happen if you wait a few weeks - if the situation hasn't changed at all, then you can start to think about seeking professional advice.
Just because they don't have a particular skill today, doesn't mean that they won't suddenly be doing it tomorrow. I would not have believed that my 17 month old would have, in the span of a few weeks, gone from saying 0 words to so many that I could barely keep track of them.
What this experience has taught me on a more general level
Nothing is for certain.
Maybe the worst thing imaginable isn't actually as bad as I initially think.
In life, you have to accept (if not, embrace) uncertainty, and have deep acceptance.
Read more about these lessons in this article.
Any parents out there going through this type of situation - I feel for you, I really really do. I feel like I've gone through a fog of anxiety and worry these past few months. This experience made me really question what I was searching for - truth was, as Allison Carmen writes in The Gift of Maybe, I was seeking certainty. Certainty that nothing bad would happen to my children. But this kind of certainty does not exist. Of course, I am so so happy that my son is now talking and doing all the expected things, but I think that, after going through this experience, I will be more accepting when I inevitably receive some kind of bad news.
I hope this article has provided some ways to shift your mental attitude away from fear and toward acceptance, and I hope you now have some resources to help you with your late talking child.
If you found this helpful, please consider sharing this article with someone going through a similar situation.
Note: This article contains affiliate links. Using these links will not cost you anything, but may give me a few cents or dollars. If you do use an affiliate link - thank you! You are supporting me and my writing.
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