Go see the doctor... (rolling medical thread)

Great news! Both about the MRI and the prodigious spelling!

Wow, that is great! Im so happy for you guys.

Hurrah! We love those boys in our house, y'know.

(I reckon the surgery has tapped into his latent superpowers).

Hurrah! I can't imagine the worry you have gone through. Your boys remind me of Ophelia's best friend in school. Just as cute. :-)

hmm the doctor is concerned with Veronica's lack of words. She's 15 months and doesn't really use any, although she babbles constantly (da da da, doodle!, puh-teh puh-teh, etc.) She says we should "narrate" more but I honestly I feel like we do that constantly. I'm a little weirded out.

c'mon someone offer me some words of encouragement here

Well, of course the advice everyone gets is "you must talk to the baby"! But, like you say, what if you're doing that?

This is an interesting article...
http://www.babyzone.com/toddler_preschooler_development/language_communication/article/late-talker-pg2
...it mentions "no words at 16 months" as a possible reason for concern but I think you are getting some words - "doodle" is a word. Is "put-eh" something in particular? Is the doc a pediatrician or a general practitioner? My experience has been that the latter tend to get "concerned" more than the former who have pretty much seen it all before! But I think you're doing the right thing anyway, seeing someone about it, because, apart from anything else, it might help not be so weirded out.

Basically (from my limited knowledge of mine and other peoples kids)the one thing you can say for sure is that it varies one hell of a lot between kids, even within the same family.

Ava babbled for England before a recognisable word ever appeared - inflected chatter that had all the feel of language but without any meaning (to us). I think she was well past 15 months, maybe 18 months, before we got "puppy" and a few other point-and-name items. Around 20 months, it was like a switch just flipped and suddenly everything was in English. Lulu was quieter - less babbling - and the words came "late" too.

What Ned said, basically.

thx I'm just in personally uncharted territory here, I appreciate the perspective

i remember telling beeps doc at her 15 months check up that all she could say was uh-oh and dada which was the same thing i told him at 9 months. he gave me an 'OH!' and asked me to bring her back in 18 months because it could be a problem. At around 17 months words were pouring out. Shes 25 months now and still finding new things to say but its been more like 10+ new words a day instead of a week or so. i remember it being really slow at first and then it just comes. i wouldnt worry too much if i were you.

oh also i remember picking her up from daycare one day and noticing the other kids in her class (who are all at least a month older than her) were able to pretty much repeat everything the teacher who was reading to them said when she pointed stuff out in pictures. this seemed so far advanced from where beeps was but within a month she was doing the same thing. the point: a month can make a huge difference

Surprised that at 15 months the doctor would be worried. Alice is monitored quite closely for speech and language development because of her cleft palate, but even then her first appointment wasn't until 18 months and they didn't seem to expect much in the way of words by that stage. More important iirc were things like variation in inflection and exploring different sounds, and seeming socialised to speech generally.

At her nursery I have seen vast differences between kids of the same age but it seems to level out soon enough. I think sometimes kids who go to nursery/daycare might pick up speech quicker, but that's not necessarily important in the long run.

Alice is apparently pretty advanced in terms of vocabulary and speech now (at two and a quarter), but I don't think we did anything different to anyone else: LOADS of reading to her, commentary on EVERYTHING etc etc.

I'm sure that Howie didn't have any words apart from 'Dadadadadad' at 15 months. Even at Christmas (22 months) he was only really starting to say a few words. Three months later he is suddenly coming out with whole sentences -- although only at home, he clams up at nursery or anywhere else. I really wouldn't worry about it.

thx guys

15 mo? wtf. i wonder if they demand your kid to count at 18 mo. dont worry. elisabeth is almost 17 mo and just took her first steps alone. words? a few but not really clear. as long as she shows signs of communicatind and babbling, it'll be alright. (hah says i, the eternal worrier!)

Or not.
General health checks in adults for reducing morbidity and mortality from disease: Cochrane systematic review and meta-analysis

We did not find beneficial effects of general health checks on morbidity, hospitalisation, disability, worry, additional physician visits, or absence from work, but not all trials reported on these outcomes. One trial found that health checks led to a 20% increase in the total number of new diagnoses per participant over six years compared with the control group and an increased number of people with self reported chronic conditions, and one trial found an increased prevalence of hypertension and hypercholesterolaemia. Two out of four trials found an increased use of antihypertensives. Two out of four trials found small beneficial effects on self reported health, which could be due to bias.

Oops, thought this was on ILE.