Is My Child Really a Late Talker? Use This Checklist to Find Out Ep 156

Is your child a late talker? Or is something else going on? 

After 40 years working with toddlers and their families, I can tell you that the term "late talker" gets thrown around so loosely — by pediatricians, educators, and early intervention teams — that most parents are left more confused than helped.

In this episode I'm giving that term its definition back. We walk through a six-area CHECKLIST you can use today, in your own home, to get a clear and honest picture of where your child actually stands. Not a diagnosis. Not a label. Clarity.

We cover what a true late talker looks like, the THREE RISK FACTORS that change everything, why the alphabet and counting don't count toward your child's word total, why gestures matter more than most people realize, and the real TIMELINE for getting help through the system — because most parents don't know it, and not knowing it is exactly why wait-and-see is so dangerous.

Download the free checklist that goes with this episode: 

🔗 CHECKLIST CLICK HERE

If you want to talk through what you're seeing with someone who has been on the floor with toddlers for 40 years, I have a few openings for a Clarity Call — 20 minutes, no pressure, one question: what does my child actually need right now?

 👉🏻 Book here: [CLARITY CALL LINK]

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DISCLAIMER:

This podcast is for educational purposes only and is not a substitute for medical advice, diagnosis, or treatment. Always consult your pediatrician or a qualified health provider with questions about your child’s development or health. The views shared are based on Erin Hyer’s professional experience and are intended to support informed parenting, not to replace individual consultation or care. Every child and family is unique — please use your discretion and consult trusted professionals when making decisions for your child.

📩 Questions: contact@HyerLearning.com
 🌐 www.HyerLearning.com

Transcript

Erin 1 0:00

Speech is not just cognitive nor linguistic. It's motor. It's a physical act. Producing speech requires the coordinated movement of approximately 100 muscles spanning your respiratory system, your vocal cords your laryngeal area, your articulatory system, which is your jaw, your lips, your tongue, your palate. 26 of those muscles are inside the oral cavity alone. And here's what makes that remarkable. They don't work in isolation. They work together in precise sequence every single time your child attempts a sound. That coordination does not arrive fully formed. It doesn't just appear when he's three. And it doesn't start in the mouth. Here's the key.

Erin 0:50

Hello and welcome to Talking Toddlers, where I share more than just tips and tricks on how to reduce tantrums or build your toddler's vocabulary. here our goal is to develop clarity, because in this modern world, it's truly overwhelming. This podcast is about empowering moms to know the difference between fact and fiction, to never give up, to tap into everyday activities so your child stays on track. He's not falling behind. He's thriving through your guidance. We know that true learning starts at home. So let's get started.

Erin 1 1:30

You've probably heard the term late talker. Maybe your pediatrician used it. Maybe you read it online at 2:00 AM when you couldn't stop worrying. Maybe a well-meaning family member threw it out there to reassure you. Here's the problem. That term gets used so loosely by parents, by doctors, early intervention team members, by educators, that it's almost lost its meaning. And when a term loses its meaning, you lose your ability to act clearly. So today, I'm going to give that term its definition back. We're going to walk through a specific checklist, six areas you can observe right now in your home with your own child. And by the end of this episode, you'll have a clear picture of where your child actually stands. Not a diagnosis, not a label, a clear, honest picture. I'm Erin Hyer. I've been a speech-language pathologist for nearly 40 years. I've worked in private practice, early intervention, preschool classrooms, and inside real homes with real families. I've seen hundreds of children who were called late talkers. Some of them were, some of them weren't, and that distinction matters more than most people realize. So let's walk through this together. First, let's nail the definition because it's precise and it matters. A true late talker is a child between roughly 18 months and 30 months of age who is not using at least 50 words and spontaneous two-word combinations. And here's the critical part: when there are no other developmental concerns, no motor delays, no significant comprehension problems, no sensory red flags, no social engagement issues, no medical diagnoses. That last part is the part everyone skips. Late talker does not mean your child who is behind in multiple areas and also happens to not be talking. It specifically describes a child whose only gap is in expressive output, the talking itself. Everything else is developing on track. So why does this matter to you? Because if your child has other things going on alongside the limited speech, they are not simply a late talker. They need a different kind of evaluation and a different kind of support. And calling it late talker, which sounds manageable and temporary, can delay you from getting the right help. Months go by, sometimes years, because that label makes everyone more comfortable. It gives the pediatrician an easy answer to offer you at a stressed 10-minute well-baby visit, and then it gives parents permission to wait. I'm not saying your pediatrician doesn't care. Most of them do, but developmental speech and language is not their specialty, and a busy private practice where your pediatrician works does not leave room for the deeper questions. And I know most of you have deeper questions. So if your gut is telling you something is off, don't wait for someone else to confirm it. You are your child's first and most important advocate. The professionals, including me, work for you. Now, let's run through two quick benchmarks before we get to that checklist. Let's first look at why 50 words by 24 months is important. That's the floor, not the ceiling. It's the 25th percentile, which means 75% of children the same age have more than 50 words. But here's what most people miss about that number. It's not just about quantity. Those 50 words have to include a mix of nouns, verbs, and at least some descriptive words Nouns are the natural starting point. Mama, ball, doggy, cup. That's the beginning. But if your child's entire vocabulary is nouns, they have nothing to combine them with. We can't talk in just nouns. You need verbs. Go, eat, jump, climb, put, fall, open. You also need a few adjectives. Think big truck, red ball, hot water, all gone. That variety is what makes two-word phrases possible. Without it, your child has a list, which is a good starting point, don't get me wrong, but it's not expressive language. And one more thing, reciting numbers or the alphabet does not count toward those 50 words, and I know that might be hard for some of you to hear. I know that it sounds impressive. He can s- recite the alphabet, but that's memorized output. It's not functional communication. A child who can count to 10 but can't ask for a drink of water or tell you that the shoe fell off, he's showing you exactly where the gap is. So now, what does count in this list of 50 words? Here's the criteria I use when evaluating any toddler's vocabulary The word counts when they meet these three pillars, and it's really important to understand each of them. First is intentionality. Your child uses the word or word approximation to ask for something, or protest something, or label something specific, an object or a person. There's purpose behind it. The second pillar that really makes this word count is consistency. Your child will use the same word or word approximation every single time they encounter that object or situation. It's not random, it's reliable. And then the third pillar is independence. The word is used spontaneously. It's not imitated or parroted back immediately after you say it first. They're saying it with intention and independently. And here's what that means practically, and I believe a lot of these might surprise you. But when you're looking at his word list, word approximations count. So ba for ball or nana for banana, those count. Those are word approximations. They can't say the entire word and articulate it clearly, but they consistently approximate it the same way. Animal and environmental sounds also count, and this surprises a lot of people, but we have to look at saying moo for cow. That's his verbal representation of the animal. Vroom for car is the verbal representation. Those count. exclamatory words also count. Uh-oh. He's expressing to you something happened, take a look, right? Or if he says, "Wow," he's saying, "That's really cool," right? That's an expression. It's a verbal representation. Yay. All of those exclamatory words count. Also, sign language counts only if it's consistently and unprompted, right? Some of the most common signs that a lot of families and preschool settings will use are more or milk, eat, sleep. Those are very similar to gestures, and they all count And then words in a second language also count, and people get surprised with this. But, and schools get surprised by this, that this is how we delineate it. If your child uses a word consistently in Spanish or Mandarin or any other language, it belongs on that list side by side to the English words. So both words count. Agua and water. Those are two separate representations of what he wants to drink. Now, let's talk about what the alphabet or reciting the alphabet, why that doesn't count. It's because reciting the ABCs is singing a memorized sequence. Your child is not assigning communicative meaning to the individual letters. Now, he might, you know, see the letter B, and maybe if his name is Bobby, he might point to it and say, "Bobby," right? That is a good association, and that counts. But reciting the ABCs and singing that song or even just counting to 10 or reciting the colors, those are performance-based. They're not actual expressive language to communicate something. So just think about that as you go about your day. Now, the second piece that I want to highlight here are spontaneous two-word combinations. What does that actually mean? We need to make a distinction with what phrases can be counted. So when we say things like, "All done," "Thank you," "I did it," or, "What's that, Mama?" You know, "What's that?" Those are holistic units. They're one chunk. Essentially, in your child's brain, it's one word, and it counts as one word. It belongs on the word list. But you don't count it as two-word combinations, right? To them, it's like a two or three-syllable word, right? "I did it." So when we talk about two-word phrases, we mean that your child genuinely mixes and matches words in real time. "More juice," "Daddy home," "Big truck." To communicate something new or novel in the moment. They're expressing something that they notice or want or need or feel on their own. Spontaneous communication is key here. That's the sign that language processing is wiring the way it should and is being used with intention. All right, so now let's talk about the checklist. There are six areas that I want you to observe. So here's what I want you to do. As I walk through these six areas, think about your child right now. Not your neighbor's child, not what your sister said her son was doing at this age, but your child. Be honest with yourself. That's the only way this is useful. So area number one is understanding, and I'm putting this first on purpose. I want you to hold onto this point because it applies to everything that follows. Understanding is the prerequisite to speech, not a parallel skill, not a companion skill, a prerequisite. Your child, any child, cannot reliably produce or say what they have not yet fully received and processed and understands So before we ever worry about words coming out, we need to know what's going on underneath. That's what understanding is. Ask yourself, "Does my child follow simple directions without me gesturing or cueing in any way?" If I say, "Go get your shoes," without pointing at them or looking toward them, do they hear it, process it, and follow through? Do they respond to their name consistently? Not occasionally, but consistently. Do they understand basic routines? Do they know what's happening when you pick up your keys and walk toward the door or put on your coat? Do they understand what that gesture means? Do they point to pictures in a book when you ask, "Show me doggy," or, "Who is sleeping?" If comprehension is shaky, if you honestly remove all of your gestures and context clues and your child doesn't follow through, that's important information. It tells you this goes beyond just slow expressive language or talking. And it means that comprehension needs to be addressed first, not alongside talking, not after talking, first. And a lot of people miss this. Professionals, parents, laypeople, educators often miss it, and that's key. Area number two is gestures. Gestures belong at the top of this list alongside comprehension, and here's why. A gesture is a symbol. When your child points to the dog, they are using one thing, a finger, a look, a direction. They're using that to represent something else entirely. That is exactly what a word does. Gestures are the first evidence that your child's brain is building the symbolic system that language depends on. So by 16 months, your child should have at least 16 different gestures, and I mean independent gestures, not gestures they produce when you prompt them or model them right before. On their own, spontaneously, pointing to something they want, reaching up to be held, waving without being told to wave, shaking their head no when they mean it, showing you something just to share it with you. And that last one, showing, not just requesting, is especially important. A child who only gestures to get something is using gestures transactionally. You know, fix this broken truck or open this box. A child who brings you a rock from the yard just because they found it interesting is sharing their world with you. That's communication. That's a fundamentally different level of social communication, and it matters. A child with very few gestures at 15 or 16 months is not shy. They are showing you that the foundational wiring for symbolic communication is not yet solidly in place. So please never overlook this. The third area is imitation. Language is learned through imitation. Before your child imitates words, they need to be imitating actions. And not just toy-based actions, you know, such as clapping when you clap or waving when you wave. That's fun-based stuff. But also watching you cook and then pretending to stir. Watching you sweep and wanting to grab the broom and do it also. Watching dad shave and mimicking the motion on their own face. Watching mom put on makeup or fixing her hair, doing the same thing. Even watching how you walk and trying to mirror that. Children are watching everything, and imitation of real life is just as important as imitation during play. Then that builds into imitating sounds, animal sounds, environmental sounds, silly sounds you make during play, right? Think of all the noises we repeat over and over again in the song The Wheels on the Bus. Do they get involved and imitate with you? And eventually they imitate words. If your child is not imitating actions and sounds, asking them to imitate words is getting ahead of where they are developmentally, and that's frustrating for them and for Imitation is a prerequisite, not a milestone in isolation. Now, area number four is play. Play tells me more about your child's development than almost anything else. So I want you to look at this as a progression. Three distinct levels for this age. Because parents and professionals often collapse them together, but it matters. So we have to understand the progression. Functional play is the beginning. It's the foundation, the first step. Does your child use toys and objects for their intended purpose? Rolling a car, feeding a baby doll, stacking the blocks, pressing the button, or opening the latch. That's functional play, and it should be solidly in place by 18 months. It tells me that your child understands cause and effect, object purpose, and some basic real-world logic. It also tells me he's been attentive, he's been watching, he's been trying and exploring, engaging and then coding his world. "Oh, I know what this baby is for. Oh, I know what this car does." The next level of play is pretend play, is the next step, And this is where I want to slow you down just a bit, because there's this distinction here that most people miss and I don't want you to do that. Pretend play is not the same as imaginary play, even though those terms get used interchangeably all the time. Pretend play is grounded in reality. It involves mimicking real-life scenarios, different roles and everyday routines, using a block as a phone, pretending to cook, making the stuffed animal go to sleep, talking on a toy phone as if making a real call. These actions mirror the real world. They're not invented. And this level of play is what we are watching for in your toddler at this age. It is the developmental stepping stone that shows us symbolic thinking is coming online. Your child is beginning to understand that one thing can represent another. That is the same cognitive skill that words require So imaginary play goes further it pushes toward full creativity and abstraction. A stick becomes a magic wand or a sword. A box becomes a spaceship. Characters and worlds that don't exist anywhere but in your child's mind. This is developmentally wonderful, and I love to watch children go here, but it comes later, after three, If you're watching your two-year-old and expecting this level of play, imaginary play, you're jumping ahead, and you're going to be disappointed, you're put pressure on him that doesn't belong there. So for our purposes today, with toddlers 18 to 30 months, pretend play is the target. If it's absent or very limited, if your child only uses objects literally and never steps into even the simplest role or scenario, That's a signal worth noting. So some examples of this is if he just spins the wheels on the truck but doesn't really push the truck along to make it move down the road. If she opens and closes the box but never puts it, puts stuff in it and then goes on a trip, right? If dumping things over and over again but never really building something They're repeating the action, but without true purpose. It's not mimicking real life with intention. It's just actions repeated over and over again. And one more thing on play. Preferences are normal, and there's a- another distinction here, right? Some children are all about trains all the time. That's their love language, right? Some are obsessed with horses or maybe fire trucks or dollies or teddy bears, or they love one special toy. That's fine. That's their preference. That's typical. What we're watching for is whether they can expand. A child with healthy development has strong interests and still moves between them, engages with other scenarios, and then invites you in. That's different than being rigid or narrow. Repetitive play with no flexibility, no interest in expansion, that's a different conversation. So I want you to look at his play today. Where are they? Area number five is social engagement. Children are wired to connect. We're human beings. That's how God designed us. So even before they can talk, they should be looking to you to share experiences, to connect You crash a tower of blocks and they look at your face to see your reaction. You point to a dog across the street and their gaze follows yours. You are sharing that experience together, even for a moment. They bring you something to show you, not to get help, but to share it. That's called joint attention, and it is one of the most important communication skills there is, at, especially at this age. So ask yourself, does my child look at me when something interesting or surprising happens? do they try to share experiences with me, not just make requests or help me? Do they interact with other children? And this isn't necessarily sharing or taking turns. That will come later. But at this stage, are they interested in other humans their size, right? Do they want to be near these kids? Do they imitate their play? Like, if somebody else is coloring or playing with blocks, they want to do the same thing side by side in parallel. They want to be in close proximity because they're trying to f- to understand how to connect, right? A child who is content to be completely alone, who doesn't look to you to share moments, who doesn't follow your point or gaze, that goes beyond a late talker profile So area number six is vocal play. Before we get to the sounds themselves, I want you to understand something that will change how you listen to your child from this point forward. Speech is not just cognitive nor linguistic. It's motor. It's a physical act. Producing speech requires the coordinated movement of approximately 100 muscles spanning your respiratory system, your vocal cords your laryngeal area, your articulatory system, which is your jaw, your lips, your tongue, your palate. 26 of those muscles are inside the oral cavity alone. And here's what makes that remarkable. They don't work in isolation. They work together in precise sequence every single time your child attempts a sound. That coordination does not arrive fully formed. It doesn't just appear when he's three. It's built slowly, repetitively over months, even years, through every babble, every squeal, every raspberry, every vowel stretch your baby produces in those first 30 months. And it doesn't start in the mouth. Here's the key. It starts in the body. Tummy time, which most parents think of as kind of neck strengthening or a precursor to crawling, which technically it is, but that's actually the beginning of the physical chain that leads to speech. It builds the core and shoulder girdle strength that supports upright posture. And we speak in an upright posture. Rolling over and crawling develop the bilateral coordination, the midline crossing that wire the brain for sequencing, the same sequencing required to string sounds into words. Crawling in particular builds the breath control, right? The jaw strength and stability, as well as the upper body strength that phonation depends on. The inhalation and exhalation to be able to phonate and make sound come out of your mouth. And then there's nasal breathing, which requires a strong, well-toned jaw and good oral closure. And with that, the tongue is resting up against the hard palate, the roof of the mouth, in that posture. That's their good posture. They're not slouching. The jaw isn't lax. The tongue isn't hanging low in the mouth. All of that supports the airflow and the coordination that spoken language runs on The body gets strong from the outside in. Core first, then the shoulders, the jaw, the tongue. Speech is the finish line of a relay race that started the moment your baby was placed on their stomach for the very first time. These are not separate questions. They are part of the same picture. So when you hear your baby making noise, varied, experimental, constantly changing noises, that is not just cute. That's 100 muscles learning to work together. Fine motor discrimination. Pay attention to it. Now, here's something most parents don't know, and it truly matters. English has 44 distinct sounds. We call them phonemes, individual sounds that change meaning in a word Around 20 of those are vowel sounds alone, which makes English one of the most complex vowel systems of any language in the world. Now, that number can shift by one or two depending on dialect and accent, but the point stands. That is a lot of ground for a young developing mouth and brain to cover, to really master, and every single one of those sounds gets rehearsed through babbling, vocal play, sound experimentation long before any recognizable word appears. So the first word is typically heard around 12 months, right? Sometimes 10, sometimes 14, but those first 10, 12, 14 months, there's a lot of ground to cover to get there. So ask yourself honestly, "Is my child noisy?" Not just crying or fussing or whining, but experimenting, using different consonants, different vowels, different volumes and pitches and, and even pacing. A child who has always been notably quiet, who babbled very little as an infant, is showing you a narrower pipeline. Noise is practice. Babbling is rehearsal. And I want to say something directly to moms here because you are the ones listening most closely. Trust your ear. You know your child's sounds better than anyone. If something sounds limited, repetitive, or unclear in a way that nags at you, that instinct is data. Don't talk yourself out of it because someone else can't hear what you hear. Now that we've looked at those six areas, let me give you three specific risk factors that tell me, after 40 years of practice, that wait and see approach is not appropriate. The first one is family history, and you may have heard of this, but if a parent, sibling, aunt, uncle, or even a cousin had a speech delay, a language problem, reading difficulties, or struggled academically, that is a significant risk factor. Language processing runs in family. But here's what I want you to understand truly. That is not a sentence. It's just a heads-up. We now understand through the science of epigenetics that our genes are not a fixed script. They're more like light switches, and that our environment and lifestyle choices determine which of those switches get turned on and which ones don't. So this is true for heart disease, it's true for anxiety, it's true for several cancers, and therefore, it's absolutely true for speech and language and learning challenges. Intentional parenting choices, a strong language-rich home, early attention to development, these things actively reduce risk. If there's a family history in your home, the most powerful thing you can do is not worry about it, but it's to act on it, to be proactive, to start now. Now, the second risk factor I want you to take a look at and consider is limited comprehension. Even mild, inconsistent comprehension alongside limited expressive language changes the picture significantly. The two often travel together, and when they do, the situation is more complex than just an average, typical, quote unquote, "late talker." And it needs to be addressed at the level of understanding first, like I said earlier, not just by trying to get more words out, but truly addressing the comprehension or understanding words, language, phrases first. So now take note, if someone, a therapist, a doctor, a friend, your mother-in-law, whomever, tries to push your child to talk more or to use his words, but you think his understanding is even just slightly weak, trust your gut. Go there. You're right nine times out of 10. Talking follows understanding And then the third risk factor I want you to take a strong look at is few to no gestures. A child approaching 18 months with very few independent gestures is showing you that the social communication system is not building as we expect or need. This is not a personality trait. This is not shyness. This is about how the brain is wiring for symbolic communication, and it's addressable, especially early on. If your child has limited vocabulary and any of these three risk factors are present, the time to act is now So let's get an honest picture of how to go about getting help. I want you to have the real timeline here because most people don't know it, And not knowing it is exactly why wait and see is so dangerous. If you contact your state's early intervention program today, they are legally required to complete an evaluation within 45 days of your request. That's a month and a half. And because of that demand on all programs, no matter what state you live in, that evaluation is often conducted by a generalist, someone covering multiple developmental areas, more or less like a checklist, not necessarily a speech language pathologist. Now, the state might call it a thorough evaluation, but it's most likely just a cursory checklist. It will cover a variety of developmental areas, but none of them really go deep. They, they cover speech and motor and sensory. At the end of that first assessment, it may or may not result in a referral to a specialist. Then you typically have to wait three or four weeks for the written results. At that time, they determine if services are recommended. The average wait time before your child is actually being seen is typically another six to eight weeks. So if we add this all up, in most states, you're looking at a minimum of three to four months from the day you make that first phone call, and you do not need your pediatrician to make a referral. You can just pick up the phone and call directly or request an evaluation online So you're looking at a minimum of three to four months from the day you make that first contact to the first weekly session. And typically, that's all that they can provide, one session per week. That's all any state system can handle at this time, and, and honestly, that's how it's been for a long, long time. I'm not telling you to discourage you from calling. I want you to call. Get your child's name on that list, but do not treat the phone call or the application online as the action. The phone call, that contact, is just the first step. You cannot afford to sit down and wait after that. Your child's development is happening right now in real time every single day, whether or not the system has your name and whether or not you're on a waiting list. The good news, and this is really good news, is that you do not need the system or a therapist to start moving the needle. You can begin today. So what can you do no matter where you are on this journey? I want to cover three things, simple, doable, and backed by 40 years of watching what actually moves the needle. The first is to be present, one-to-one with your child. Put the phone down, no multitasking. Even 10 to 15 minutes a day of genuine distraction-free connection changes outcomes. Get on the floor, follow their lead, share whatever they're interested in. Just three or four toys, be there with them. You don't need a curriculum. You need your presence. Number two, be purposeful. Match your language to where your child is. If they're not talking yet, they don't need your narration of everything. They need simple, meaningful language tied directly to what they're doing right now. One to two words, action words, sound effects. Less lecture, more lived-in language with them. And the third, be playful. Stop testing. Stop asking, "What's this? What's this?" Stop waiting for performance. Imitate them. Make silly sounds. Get ridiculous. Make the interaction worth their effort, because talking takes real energy for your child who is still building that foundation. It's physical, it's cognitive, it's emotional. Make it feel safe to try. You need to be the most interesting thing in the room, and they need to be in it with you So here's what I want you to walk away with today. Late talker is not a throwaway phrase, and it's not a prediction. It's a specific profile. and whether your child fits that profile exactly or whether there's more going on underneath, you now have a framework to look through, not with panic, with clarity. I want you to download the checklist that goes with this episode. It highlights the six areas, the key questions, the three risk factors, and the real timeline for getting help. Print it out, look it over, use it this week. Share it with your partner. Share it with any other adult who's in your world. And if what you see raises more questions, that's not a reason to spiral. That's a reason to act. You are not helpless in this. Whatever is happening with your child's development, you are the most important person in the room. Not me, not a therapist, not your pediatrician, not a state or a school system, you. And if you want to talk through what you're seeing, not to be evaluated and not to be sold anything, just to get a straight answer from someone who has been doing this for forty years, I have a few openings in June for a clarity call. Twenty minutes, just you and me, one question on the table: What does my child actually need right now? The link is in the description, and I look forward to speaking with you. So God bless, and I'll see you next week on Talking Toddlers.