Moms of twins and late talkers? (oh and please note, we still don't sleep)

[Ann.without.an.e]

We really haven't been anxious about the girls not talking yet. We've read a lot of stories of twins, but especially identical twins, being late to talk. 

They will be 18 months old this month though and, without voicing this to DD, I'm starting to low key get concerned. 

No talking whatsoever. They do not really babble. Not even like dada or mama. Very quiet little butterflies unless they are angry at each other and then they scream. 

They seem socially in tune, they read social clues better than average, they are bright and can figure a lot of things out. 

They still do not sleep y'all. I have no idea how DD continues to function. She decided at some point to co-sleep because no sleep was being had the other way and they just still wake up a ton, 3+ times a piece each night on a good night where they actually settle. 

Edited August 8 by Ann.without.an.e

[Ottakee]

Has their hearing been checked?

Fluid in their ears or ear infections?   This could greatly affect sleep as well.

My grandson didn’t talk or babble and wasn’t walking at 18 months old.  Got ear tubes and was walking in 2 weeks and started talking.  Just a few months later he was totally on schedule.

[Ann.without.an.e]

1 minute ago, Ottakee said:

Has their hearing been checked?

Fluid in their ears or ear infections?   This could greatly affect sleep as well.

My grandson didn’t talk or babble and wasn’t walking at 18 months old.  Got ear tubes and was walking in 2 weeks and started talking.  Just a few months later he was totally on schedule.

 

That's incredible. They seem to hear fine? They've never mentioned fluid at any well check appt? Maybe I will ask DD what she thinks though. 

[horsellian]

No experience with twins, but my oldest was a late talker. Maybe 10 "words" at 27 months? Most of those were animal noises. Health professionals were not concerned as she was following instructions well, and clearly understanding, and using some baby signing.

At 30 months she started speaking beautifully in full sentences!  My mum said I was similarly late, but went straight to full sentences.

[Ann.without.an.e]

2 minutes ago, horsellian said:

No experience with twins, but my oldest was a late talker. Maybe 10 "words" at 27 months? Most of those were animal noises. Health professionals were not concerned as she was following instructions well, and clearly understanding, and using some baby signing.

At 30 months she started speaking beautifully in full sentences!  My mum said I was similarly late, but went straight to full sentences.

 

That is good to hear. They are deep thinkers and notice everything and watch everything. They copy us a lot and use some sign language. They will follow instructions and the "older" one will often watch and try to predict what you may need since she loves to "help". They don't seem autistic at all? That is the biggest concern with speech, I believe?

 

[Terabith]

Autism isn't the only thing to be concerned about.  The lack of babbling really IS a concern.  Apraxia is something else to be on the lookout for.  I had one child who started speech therapy at 15 months....it was amazingly helpful.  I had another child who didn't sleep.  That was hell.  I cannot imagine with twins who both don't sleep.  I'm so sorry.

What I would do is:  1) Start teaching ASL/ Baby Signs.  They're at a perfect age for Signing Time with Rachel Coleman.  Watch it as a family and use the signs in daily life.  We started this in earnest with my oldest and she had 250 signs by her second birthday.  

2) I would definitely ask about having hearing tested and fluid in the ears.  I would also call Early Steps/ Early Intervention whatever it is called in your area and have an evaluation.  Evals are free.  Therapy is close to free.  They do it at your house.  It's fun and play based.  There's like zero downside.  

3) I would look at their oral motor skills.  Are they eating a wide variety of types of foods?  I would do things like brush their tongues with a Nuk textured brush.  I would put whipped cream on mirrors for them to lick off.  I would put nutella or peanut butter on the side of their mouths.  I'd give them applesauce and thick straws to suck up.  I'd give them straws and try to get them to blow cotton balls.  I'd use those pinwheels and bubbles.  Over exaggerate hand motions and expressive vocal sounds like "Uh oh!" I'd just really work on getting them to use the muscles in their mouths and cheeks, as well as encouraging them to make vocal noises that aren't screeching.  Animal sounds.  "Whooooooaaah" while pretending to be a horse.  Stuff like that.  

Some kids are just late talkers and are fine, but some kids do have real problems, and if there is a problem (which is really hard to know in advance), early intervention can make all the difference.  If they'd be regular late talkers anyway, speech therapy isn't going to hurt them, and if they have a true speech delay or oral motor weakness, early intervention can keep them from ever really being behind. 

[prairiewindmomma]

My nephew didnt babble or speak at 18 months. Red flags here too. Ped blew off the issue at the 24 month appointment also. Long story short, kid finally went into evals and has been in intensive speech therapy since. Apraxia is just as much of a concern as autism, and mild autism isnt super obvious in young children. Lots of kids pass screeners as preschoolers who fail them as teens.
 

I’d reach out to the 0-3 early intervention evaluators for your state and make sure a qualified SLP puts eyes on them. Pediatricians really blow off kids as “late talkers” and it’s not always that simple. 

[TheReader]

My late talker did babble and such.  The no babbling is concerning. 

We did speech therapy and occupational therapy through ECI (Early childhood intervention); we didn't pay for it, although I think they billed our insurance. Maybe we qualified for free/reduced rate b/c of him being so premature + we had maxed our out of pocket w/his NICU stay; I think (this was 19 yrs ago) it was income based/sliding scale. They came to us, and it was great. Lots of ideas and help that even as a 3rd time mom I wouldn't have thought of. 

the no sleep thing....he never napped and mostly didn't sleep - he nursed like a newborn (waking all the time) until he was 3 and we finally weaned. I think the co-sleeping maybe made that part worse, since there was mom, and any time he stirred, I'd just pop him back on to nurse him back to sleep. I was insanely sleep deprived those first 3 years. Your DD needs to be tag-teaming w/her DH on the sleep. Taking turns or something; if they can set up a twin bed/spare bed in some other room, one of them should sleep in there for however many hours each night while the other does twin duty. Or take whole nights, or whatever so that she can get some sleep at night.  

"but he has to work" -- no. So does she -- and her work is keeping alive 2 little humans. Two little humans who don't/can't use their voices to alert her if there's some kind of issue. 

 

[Hilltopmom]

Please encourage her to request an Early Intervention eval.  

If they qualify, services will be free, usually in home, & kids love it.

Early intervention is so important. It’s no longer considered best practice to “wait and see” if they’ll catch up.

ETA- my advice as a former EI provider, & all of my children have gotten EI as babies/ toddlers 

Edited August 8 by Hilltopmom

[cjzimmer1]

38 minutes ago, Ann.without.an.e said:

We really haven't been anxious about the girls not talking yet. We've read a lot of stories of twins, but especially identical twins, being late to talk. 

They will be 18 months old this month though and, without voicing this to DD, I'm starting to low key get concerned. 

No talking whatsoever. They do not really babble. Not even like dada or mama. Very quiet little butterflies unless they are angry at each other and then they scream. 

They seem socially in tune, they read social clues better than average, they are bright and can figure a lot of things out. 

 

Not talking at 18 months doesn't really ring any worry bells for me.  At 2 my oldest had less than 10 "words" (some were just his made up words like didi for blanket).  His doctor informed me it was because I stayed home with him and I needed to take him around more kids (that doctor wasn't our doctor for long after that) despite having a family history of boys who were late talkers and then when they decided to talk spoke in sentences. We would constantly practice saying words, if he could say it clearly he would otherwise he wouldn't even try. The child who went from less than 10 words at 24 months, could correctly identify and verbally name all the letters of the alphabet at 27 months and could count to 1000 by 36 months.  This was a child who just wouldn't do anything until it was "perfect" (and 27 years later still struggles with this tendency).   His dad and grandfather were the same way.  So sometimes it's just a personality trait for the late talking and not a sign of anything being wrong.

[MrsMommy]

I'm not saying you *should* be concerned, especially since I know nothing about twins, but I think seeking intervention earlier rather than later can only be a good thing. That is my biggest regret with my younger son, letting it go too long and trying to look for excuses that would explain his lack of speech, because the time I wasted was time he could have been receiving more services.

[sweet2ndchance]

I would also request an Early Intervention evaluation.

My oldest son had fluid in his ears. No ear infections just clear fluid. Sometimes it can't be seen in the ear if there is so much in there that it fills the ear canal. It's like looking through a glass of water. You can't see if there is water in the glass close up unless you can see the line at the top of water level. It's similar to how it was explained to me how fluid in the ear can work.

If they have ear fluid they may hear just fine and pass a tone test in the peds office with flying colors. My oldest ds did which is why it took so long to get ear tubes for him. But children with fluid in their ears hear as if they are under water. If they do talk, they tend to sound like they have a mouth full of mush because that's how they hear everything.

My oldest son got ear tubes 2 weeks shy of his 5th birthday. His speech problems disappeared within a month of getting the tubes.

My youngest son has apraxia. He has much more complex speech problems than my oldest son did. In addition to no babbling, he doesn't do well with food textures. To this day, he's almost 12 now, he still gags on certain textures and has a stutter. When he was a baby, getting him to try any kind of new food was a nightmare. Most babies love to eat little bits off your plate, but not youngest ds. It took him forever to get used to a new texture and learn to chew it properly. He also had dysphagia with silent aspiration. He was in speech therapy and feeding therapy when he was little. Now he is just in speech therapy.

18 months is definitely old enough to become low key concerned about no words or babbling. Early Intervention in your area can get your dd and dgd's connected with the right people.

[historically accurate]

I would get the free eval from Early Intervention. My second didn't babble much - doctor blew it off as 2nd child syndrome. She had apraxia, and she was in speech for 12+ years. She has all sounds except r now. 

Signing Times saved us with middle - dd had around 200 signs (and about 6 sounds) when EI came for evals shortly after her 2nd birthday. That was the only TV we allowed for a couple of years was a Signing Times DVD.

My 3rd didn't sleep until she was 18 months. It was horrible; I still can't remember much about my youngest's babyhood since I was so sleep-deprived. It turned out to be the side effect of a medication she was on from the time she was 4 weeks old. Is it possible the twins take a vitamin or medication that might be causing the sleep issues? 

[Ottakee]

Agreeing with the early in evals.  My grandson had services from them for about a year and it was great.   These kiddos that get early intervention can often qualify for free preschool, even if they are caught up developmentally and that can be a huge future benefit.

[sweet2ndchance]

Forgot to add, if they can pass a tone test in the peds office but still no speech, request a audiologist exam for both girls. That's how we found out oldest ds was hearing underwater. The first test he did was a tympanagram and it showed no movement of the ear drum due to fluid behind the ear drum. He could hear sound but it was muffled sound and as if he were always underwater.

[SanDiegoMom]

Late talking for all my three, but they babbled from early on.  First words were around 2 years old for my kids.  Babbling, noises, etc were from probably one year or maybe even earlier?

[Beth S]

Our 4th child didn't speak at around 18 months, & was obviously surrounded night-and-day with verbal stimulation.
I don't remember if he babbled.

We ended up using simple Sign Language.
It worked great = Thank you, Please, More, Milk, etc.

[KungFuPanda]

I would get the twins evaluated now.  The process can take time so it’s best to get on the schedule. There’s no down side to checking into it. My son didn’t walk until 18 months and had fewer than ten words at age two.  Speech therapists visited our home for appointments that looked like play dates to my child. He qualified for developmental preschool and therapies years before he had his diagnosis. It was all free. They picked him up and retuned him at our house.  
 

The program went a long way towards preparing him for kindergarten and having interventions in place before age three made the process seamless when he was four. There are extra hoops to jump through if you evaluate an older child. There is no down side to getting the girls evaluated beyond the emotional hurdles for the parents. 

[Lecka]

Where we lived at the time, early intervention wanted to see 4 words at 18 months.  That’s what they were looking for. 
 

I would encourage them to call and make an appointment.  They can make an appointment before 18 months, you don’t have to wait for them to turn 18 months before calling… in case it takes a little time to get in.  
 

Where we lived at the time, the pediatrician should refer to early intervention for this.

 

However different locations have different cut-offs!!!!!!!!!  I can only say, that was the case where we lived at the time.  
 

With that said, that means they should be seen by someone.  Someone could see them and say “everything is good.”  It doesn’t mean there is a problem or that they are going to tell you there’s a problem.  It does mean someone should see them.  
 

There can be middle ear infections where the main symptom is a speech delay.  They can’t necessarily see it in the doctors office.  My twins got tubes in their ears right before they turned 2.  One twin caught up and surpassed all speech/language goals within 3 months.  The other one ended up being diagnosed with autism right before he turned 4.  They both made progress after getting tubes, and the early intervention people helped me to know what to do.  I did still go back to the pediatrician, but I went back to the pediatrician with information from the early intervention people about why they thought they should have a referral/screening and then get tubes.  

[Lecka]

I don’t remember their birth weight or when they were born.

 

This is another reason to see early intervention, because they know about when to worry or not worry with an earlier birth or lower weight.  
 

It could mean, don’t worry because they track with their adjusted age.

 

It could mean, worry a little more because of their time or weight.  
 

I would also listen to the pediatrician, if the pediatrician makes a different suggestion, or suggests a different referral, etc.  

 

I watched many of my son’s classmates in special needs pre-school, who were preemies, go on to meet all their milestones and transfer into a regular Kindergarten!!!!!!!!  

 

Edit:  my twins were born at 37 1/2 weeks and over 6 pounds each.  This is what I heard, though, there were a lot of preemies in my son’s special needs pre-school class.  

 

Edited August 8 by Lecka

[KSera]

I’m agreeing with all the excellent advice above. @Terabith really good ideas for activities to do with them. Either one or both of them had a lot of feeding difficulty initially, correct? That would be setting up some red flags for me of potential apraxia issues. I’m sure the thought of any thing like this being “wrong” with the girls is likely anxiety provoking for their mom, but it really will be okay, even if they have a developmental delay of some kind going on. 
 

I advise their mom to keep a record of some kind of any of these early potential concerns. I found by the time my kids were teenagers and young adults, if we had to do an intake somewhere where they wanted to know about early developmental concerns, I wish I’d written things down at the time, but at the time, everyone seemed very normal to me and it never struck me I might need the information later.

The sleep thing is so hard and I can’t even imagine with two. Any chance they have reflux? That frequently goes along with the tongue tie thing.

[Katy]

So a couple things... with twins or preemies, until about 18 months they adjust for prematurity. So depending on how old they are, they might want to wait 6-8 weeks to count as 18 months.  But DD might as well call anyway because EI is free.

The other thing is that both with twins and singletons, it's not unusual for babies who stay at home to speak later than other babies. Because mom knows them so well and can anticipate their needs, so a grunt will do when if they were at daycare with overwhelmed caretakers, they would need to learn to speak more clearly. So I would go ahead and get the EI, and also have medical evaluations.

[SKL]

Whenever this comes up, people will say "I know of a child who didn't talk until she was 2.5 and then she suddenly started speaking in full paragraphs."  But even though we all know of someone like that, it is statistically much more likely that a language delay indicates an issue.  I agree with others that it's pretty easy and risk-free to get an evaluation.

I often hear of doctors being unconcerned about delays etc.  My own kid's ophthalmologist chose not to tell me that he detected a vision problem, because in his mind, it's better to wait until a child is failing in school before intervening.  I have other stories about unconcerned doctors.  Doctors are not gods.  I'd ignore the doc on this one and get evals.

Not to be alarmed.  Just to be better informed and proactive.  It will likely also provide access to resources for future use.

[Lecka]

3 hours ago, sweet2ndchance said:

Forgot to add, if they can pass a tone test in the peds office but still no speech, request an audiologist exam for both girls. That's how we found out oldest ds was hearing underwater. The first test he did was a tympanagram and it showed no movement of the ear drum due to fluid behind the ear drum. He could hear sound but it was muffled sound and as if he were always underwater.

Where I lived at the time, the Early Intervention speech therapist had access to a tympanometer (what I think is what it was called).  I think she did it twice over time before saying “it’s time to go to the pediatrician and tell them they need to be referred for the ear tubes process.”  Speech delay plus tympanometer, because we never saw particular signs of an ear infection.  
 

Edit:  iirc one had zero words, and one had 3 words, at 18 months.  And I called at 18 months, and it was more like 19 months before we went for their appointment.  
 

Edited August 8 by Lecka

[bookbard]

Please continue with the sign language - it is great for them, as it teaches a whole lot about how communication works. I used singing and storytime to introduce new signs - focus on nouns and verbs, stuff like 'more' is a danger as it replaces a wide range of nouns and verbs.

[Lecka]

In my honest opinion — some of the people whose kids only had so many words at whatever age….

 

If they took them to EI, EI might count many more things as words.  They might count making an animal sound as a word.  
 

Or, if they were asked to make a record of words, it might turn out that there were some more words over a week.  
 

I think there are often people who go to EI and then it turns out EI is counting things in a different way, and does say they are meeting the benchmarks.  
 

Edit:  they might count choo-choo or anything vaguely like choo-choo…. They might count calling a family member by a gibberish-but-consistent name.  They might count a lot that people don’t usually count.  
 

And the “about this many words” are easy to be a guess when someone is not writing down every new word.  

Edited August 8 by Lecka

[happypamama]

One of mine was a late talker, very few spoken words before two. Very engaged, happy, obviously understanding plenty, just not speaking. He did sign a lot, though, and I think it really helped him not be frustrated. He did catch up but also did do speech therapy for a while after about age 3 because he was putting sounds in the wrong place, and we believe he is mildly dyslexic. I'm a big fan of getting evaluations if there are any concerns. Let the professionals tell you what is within the range of normal and will naturally catch up versus what could use some focused support. And in the meantime, encourage signing! All of mine have done some signing, but it was particularly important for that child.

Edited August 8 by happypamama

[Lecka]

I do not remember the details of this, if it was just my son or both kids, I definitely took both of them to the office…. My son with 0 words had a hearing test before he got tubes, they wanted to rule out a hearing problem first.  That was through the pediatrician.  
 

However that had been brought up at the EI appointment and we had been watching both of them, and we felt like both of them responded to noises, so we weren’t particularly concerned and it was more of just following the procedure to get tubes.  That is just the procedure they had where we were living.  

[kbutton]

4 hours ago, Ann.without.an.e said:

They seem socially in tune, they read social clues better than average, they are bright and can figure a lot of things out. 

This screams a hearing or language issue to me, though it doesn’t have to be a huge one necessarily—kids who have difficulties with hearing or speaking and are good troubleshooters/really bright often learn to compensate by honing these sorts of skills. One of mine had an extensive vocabulary by 18-24 months but had difficulty explaining stuff, so he used a series of gestures and very short phrases/onomatopoeia to describe really complicated stuff (like down to the tiniest detail how to build a fire in our woodstove), so everyone thought he was fine.

At age 13, he still couldn’t write a paragraph or paraphrase a story or tell completely about something that had happened to him until he’d literally had YEARS to process it. Years! But he blew the lid off the IQ test, so he could hide it very well.

In learning more about language development via discussion with @Lecka, I could look back and see the holes (and with therapy, he’s been able to do well). He covered SO WELL.

4 hours ago, Ann.without.an.e said:

That is good to hear. They are deep thinkers and notice everything and watch everything. They copy us a lot and use some sign language. They will follow instructions and the "older" one will often watch and try to predict what you may need since she loves to "help". They don't seem autistic at all? 

Again, these could be compensatory skills they’ve honed.

I’m not at all saying autism is on the table here, but it can be wildly different than expected. My two gifted autistic kids (one diagnosed as a teen) were both observant helpers who copied things and tried to predict everything also (other kids and people’s pets drove one bonkers because he couldn’t predict those things). Neither were late talkers, but one had auditory processing issues and one had quirky ways of working around the limitations in his language development. Both are gifted, and the one with elaborate verbal workarounds didn’t get identified with a language deficit until age 13 and only with specialized tests. It was nuts.

I think a hearing test and an EI eval is wise.

[Lecka]

https://www.kennedykrieger.org/patient-care/centers-and-programs/center-for-autism-services-science-and-innovation/outreach-and-training/early-signs-of-autism-video-tutorial
 

This is a video series showing early signs of autism in toddlers.  I don’t think it hurts anything to watch it.  It’s not the same one I watched 10+ years ago, but it seems like it would be good.  I found watching videos to be extremely helpful!  
 

Edit:  I find it so interesting, too, because they (researchers) were doing “baby sib” studies of younger siblings of children diagnosed with autism, and were able to observe those kids and separate out ones who would go on to be diagnosed with a speech delay or ADHD or something, but not autism.  Before that I think it was a lot more common for speech delay kids to be caught up in autism screenings at a young age, while missing some kids with autism who could be identified once more information was discovered.  

Edited August 8 by Lecka

[Ann.without.an.e]

Thinking on it more, I guess they do chatter some? They just never did that intentional like baba dada mama, etc. They will make little noises and sounds though. They will say mum mum mum when they want to eat. I think that is the extent of their "words" though. 

I don't think it is hearing since they are light sleepers. The dog barking, a door slamming, etc and they are awake. 

I do not think it is apraxia unless I am misunderstanding what that is? They have really good motor skills. They did have some feeding issues when they were first born but it was lip and tongue ties that were fixed. They eat exceptionally well for their age. They use a spoon and fork fairly well. 

@Lecka The video is very interesting, but it makes me feel even more like it isn't ASD. They are more in tune with people around them than average. They are often more interested in interacting with people that they are comfortable with and each other than they are toys. They play pretend all the time. By the time they were one, their favorite game was to rock their little baby dolls and kiss their heads. They have a little kitchen set and they love to pretend to make dinner and then to feed us their pretend food. They are constantly coming to us for interaction. They blow kisses and played peek a boo at a young age. They are shy of strangers or unfamiliar people though, but many kids their age are so I don't think this is unusual. 

Edited August 9 by Ann.without.an.e

[Terabith]

There are lots of degrees of apraxia, but it basically means "have trouble making sounds with their mouths."  For some kids, it is profound, and they require tons and tons of therapy for years.  For other kids, their issues are much more minor.  Some kids have issues copying gestures or physical actions as well, but apraxia of speech is basically just related to speech production.

My oldest, who started speech therapy at 15 months, started not because they had no words, which wouldn't have alarmed me at all, but because they would say a word once (random things....elevator, garage, light) but then never repeat it again.  We did the extensive ASL and simultaneous speech therapy that worked on oral motor issues.  They couldn't move their tongue consistently in the right way to make sounds to produce speech.  They couldn't copy wiggling their tongue to the side or touch their top lip with their tongue.  Random things like that.  But because we worked on the ASL, they never fell behind in the language production, and when the speech therapy taught them how to use their mouths, they came in as above average by 2.5.  But if we had waited a year, which many would have advised us to do, they would have been so much further behind and it would have been harder to catch up.

Right now, at least here, there's a huge backlog for speech therapists.  So there's absolutely no down side to getting on the list.  Having an evaluation is not going to do anything but good.  If EI people come out and say everything is good, you have relieved your worries!  I did that with my youngest when she had a super janky crawl for awhile at like 7 months.  I didn't know if that was okay, but their physical therapists came out, looked, said "Oh yeah, that's completely normal," and I felt better and let go of that worry.  No downside!  And I was so glad that my oldest got speech and OT, because it really helped and it gave me another set of eyes on them once a week or every two weeks.  It was like a fun play date with new toys brought to our house for my kid.  It was just good all around! 

[KSera]

5 minutes ago, Ann.without.an.e said:

I don't think it is hearing since they are light sleepers. The dog barking, a door slamming, etc and they are awake. 

This would be a different kind of hearing loss. They can clearly hear, but it’s a question of how accurately they hear the sounds. 
 

 

6 minutes ago, Ann.without.an.e said:

I do not think it is apraxia unless I am misunderstanding what that is? They have really good motor skills. They did have some feeding issues when they were first born but it was lip and tongue ties that were fixed. They eat exceptionally well for their age. They use a spoon and fork fairly well. 

In this case, childhood apraxia of speech would be the potentially relevant condition, not general motor apraxia. My apraxic kiddo had really good fine and gross motor skills, for example. 

8 minutes ago, Ann.without.an.e said:

The video is very interesting, but it makes me feel even more like it isn't ASD. They are more in tune with people around them than average. They are often more interested in interacting with people that they are comfortable with and each other than they are toys. They play pretend all the time. By the time they were one, their favorite game was to rock their little baby dolls and kiss their heads. They have a little kitchen set and they love to pretend to make dinner and they then to feed us their pretend food. They are constantly coming to us for interaction. They blow kisses and played peek a boo at a young age.

Likely it’s not, but I wouldn’t decide it can be ruled out based on any of this. Autistic kids can meet all those descriptions. Mine was super highly imaginative, social, smart, talkative and I never thought it was a diagnosis we would need to consider in the future. This is quite common with high iq girls with autism. So I’d just tuck it away as something to be aware of, but not alarmed about.

[Terabith]

9 minutes ago, KSera said:

Likely it’s not, but I wouldn’t decide it can be ruled out based on any of this. Autistic kids can meet all those descriptions. Mine was super highly imaginative, social, smart, talkative and I never thought it was a diagnosis we would need to consider in the future. This is quite common with high iq girls with autism. So I’d just tuck it away as something to be aware of, but not alarmed about.

Yeah, when our kids were little, we were really worried about my oldest, who had the speech delay and sensory processing issues.  My youngest was extremely precocious in all milestones.  At four months old, she was laying on the floor while my oldest was having their speech therapy, and the speech therapist looked at Cat and said, "Now THAT'S a neurotypical child."

As it turns out, my youngest, who walked and spoke in sentences at nine months actually IS autistic, and my kiddo with all the early childhood red flags is crunchy but NOT autistic.  

You can rule in autism pretty young, but you can't really rule it out definitively.  

But IN NO WAY saying the twins have autism.  Or apraxia!  Honestly, it doesn't sound like there are red flags for autism.  That would not be my worry at this point.  But not saying words or babbling at 18 months would be weird enough that I think an early intervention is warranted.  Just saying that autism can present in different ways and might not be evident in the toddler years.  But it's kind of a side topic and not really relevant to the twins right now, given the information we have.

[sweet2ndchance]

14 minutes ago, KSera said:

27 minutes ago, Ann.without.an.e said:

I don't think it is hearing since they are light sleepers. The dog barking, a door slamming, etc and they are awake. 

This would be a different kind of hearing loss. They can clearly hear, but it’s a question of how accurately they hear the sounds. 

This exactly! A child can hear noise but not hear words and speech sounds accurately. That's why it's important to have their hearing checked by an audiologist who can diagnose many different types of hearing impairment.

[kbutton]

Agreeing with @KSera and @Terabith about the ruling in and out AND the not worrying about autism either. And the different kinds of hearing/sound accuracy.

17 minutes ago, KSera said:

This would be a different kind of hearing loss. They can clearly hear, but it’s a question of how accurately they hear the sounds. 

[Terabith]

Last year I got a cold, and my ears got stuffy.  I got fluid behind one of them.  Not tons.  Nothing infected.  But it wouldn't go away.  I had fluid behind my eardrum for NINE MONTHS. I could hear sounds, but it definitely impacted how I processed background noise and language.  It wasn't really a problem for me as an adult, but for a child, I think it would have been imperative to have fixed it much sooner than they got around to offering me tubes.  (The fluid drained while I was in the chair upside down waiting for him to start the procedure to put the tube in.)

[kbutton]

Just now, Terabith said:

Last year I got a cold, and my ears got stuffy.  I got fluid behind one of them.  Not tons.  Nothing infected.  But it wouldn't go away.  I had fluid behind my eardrum for NINE MONTHS. I could hear sounds, but it definitely impacted how I processed background noise and language.  It wasn't really a problem for me as an adult, but for a child, I think it would have been imperative to have fixed it much sooner than they got around to offering me tubes.  (The fluid drained while I was in the chair upside down waiting for him to start the procedure to put the tube in.)

DH goes nuts over this hearing issue every time he has a certain kind of congestion, but then he remembers what it is and takes Sudafed.

I used to have plugged ears all the time that wouldn’t stay open when I would do my opening “maneuvers” (I’m one of those weird people that can blow out my ears without plugging my nose and can pop my ears with just a tongue movement) until chiropractic randomly fixed it. That also made hearing really weird for a few years.

I think all of those subtle things can throw things off for littles. 

[prairiewindmomma]

If they still arent sleeping well, heads up that now is a good time to put audible sensors on external doors and windows. They have stickons that will chime if they dont already have a hardwired security system. 
 

ETA: also make sure the fridge is safety bolted to the wall

 

Edited August 9 by prairiewindmomma

[Lecka]

34 minutes ago, Ann.without.an.e said:

The video is very interesting, but it makes me feel even more like it isn't ASD. They are more in tune with people around them than average. They are often more interested in interacting with people that they are comfortable with and each other than they are toys. They play pretend all the time. By the time they were one, their favorite game was to rock their little baby dolls and kiss their heads. They have a little kitchen set and they love to pretend to make dinner and then to feed us their pretend food. They are constantly coming to us for interaction. They blow kisses and played peek a boo at a young age. They are shy of strangers or unfamiliar people though, but many kids their age are so I don't think this is unusual. 

I would assume they are preemies then.  It’s really common for preemies to be in early intervention, but catch up while they are still little kids.  It’s just a thing.  That is if they are preemies, lol.  It’s not an uncommon situation for preemies, or it doesn’t seem uncommon to me, at least.  If they aren’t preemies, hey, sometimes it still happens!  My strong impression is that most kids will receive early intervention for a while and then reach their benchmarks.  This is still good though, if it means kids are caught up when they start kindergarten.  It has value. 
 

I agree with others about autism not being ruled out at such a young age.  However for kids where they show signs at this young age — it is very good to know.  
 

They also might be too young to really worry about (but I would say to call EI and let them be the ones to decide).  
 

And kids do suddenly just start doing things, too!  
 

I am very in favor of running things by EI and bringing up concerns to the pediatrician.  Don’t keep quiet and see if the pediatrician notices — go ahead and ask.  
 

I think with the videos, if you notice something when they are a little older and are interacting more with other people or in a more broad number of ways — hey, you watched the videos, you can always go back and watch them again later if you want to.  

[katilac]

There is absolutely no down side to getting an evaluation done. 

[EKS]

I would start by having their hearing checked.  If that checks out, then I would see about a more comprehensive evaluation.  It's the lack of babbling that is pinging my radar at this age.

[Lecka]

Just now, EKS said:

I would start by having their hearing checked.  If that checks out, then I would see about a more comprehensive evaluation.  It's the lack of babbling that is pinging my radar at this age.

In my memory, they told me that my kids did have their hearing checked as infants, but that sometimes kids develop hearing loss for various reasons, or sometimes there was something comparatively minor that wasn’t picked up in the infant screening.  
 

In my memory we had a referral to an audiologist office, I can’t remember exactly what they did.  My kids were very little, they would have been under 2, because they got tubes before they were 2.  

 

This was what the pediatrician said they should do.  

 

[Clarita]

Agree with getting evaluated. I know lots of friends who had their children evaluated for late talking issues. Yes, it may be there is nothing wrong with them, but a lot of children have nothing wrong with them and still get speech therapy. For those that really have nothing wrong with them, my friends got a lot of good input from the speech therapist to help their little ones start talking. 

Bring it up to pediatrician and stuff, I know in my state that sort of thing can be paid for by public schools. 

[Lecka]

I have to say, the EI speech therapist really helped me, because I had no idea what to do.  I had no idea how to communicate with the pediatrician.  I had no idea when/how to follow up with the pediatrician.  
 

I had never had a referral before and I didn’t know how referrals worked at all.  I didn’t know anything about how to go about anything.  

Edit:  I really went from having no idea how to move forward, to feeling confident and capable, and able to express my concerns and follow up.  I had absolutely no idea how to do any of those things, it was just a vacuum for me.  I had no idea who I might ask for help, I didn’t even know what I didn’t know.  I knew other young moms who also had no idea about health stuff.  Edit:  as far as I know — I didn’t begin to even know what to ask, to ask other people I knew.  It was foreign to me and I had very little previous exposure.  I had my babies in the hospital, but that was it, and that was just — do whatever pregnant women do.  I was pregnant so I went to my OB/GYN appointments — I didn’t have a referral doing that, or maybe I did and they just did it for me and I just went to the OB/GYN. 

 

Edited August 9 by Lecka

[Scarlett]

On the sleeping issue… it’s tough. Friday night when our son was in the bed with our grandson there was barely any sleep to be had. It did not keep me awake but Dh said our grandson talked and cried  until about 2 am and the our son had to get up at 4 to go to work. 
On Sat we were strict with a schedule of eating and napping and play…. And although he went to bed later than I wanted (10:30) he slept through the night until about 6 am.( then came to our bed and slept another two hours)  What might have helped is when his dad came in at midnight he went to the other guest bed to sleep. So at 6 am dgs did not even know his dad was in the house. 
 

[BusyMom5]

I agree that getting on the list for an evaluation is a good idea, but I also don't think there is definitely something going on.  The little bit of babbling and sound is good, as is their ability to take in information and understand it. The way they do communicate and seem happy to play together can be normal ❤️  I love twins!!!!  I feel like a lot of possibilities are being thrown around, but it's very early.  They are just turning 18 months, and I think they were a month early, so say 17 months adjusted. Many kids have a language explosion around age 2!  If they are able to meet their communication needs with each other without using words, they may just not feel it's a priority skill.  Many times not having language leads to big temper tantrums as they struggle to communicate.   

I have had 2 kids with speech issues- not my twins.  In both cases I knew something was going on by age 2, so give them a little more time.

My twins could just communicate with each other to do complicated things- like break out of the play area, push one brother up high on something,  even sharing toys- they just worked it out almost telepathically.  Mine had 2 older siblings and some cousins, so they were talking at this age.  With each other, they didn't talk as much, it was more gestures and just seeming to know how to work and play together.   They still do it today!  My DH and they two of them will be doing mechanic type work and while DH needs to speak, the two of them seem not just kinda grunt or gesture and know what the other needs.  Their brains seem to use similar pathways to solve problems, so they know how the other is thinking.  

 

[KidsHappen]

8 hours ago, Terabith said:

Last year I got a cold, and my ears got stuffy.  I got fluid behind one of them.  Not tons.  Nothing infected.  But it wouldn't go away.  I had fluid behind my eardrum for NINE MONTHS. I could hear sounds, but it definitely impacted how I processed background noise and language.  It wasn't really a problem for me as an adult, but for a child, I think it would have been imperative to have fixed it much sooner than they got around to offering me tubes.  (The fluid drained while I was in the chair upside down waiting for him to start the procedure to put the tube in.)

I am kind of going through the same sort of thing right now. I have a staph infection in my sinuses and I have been fighting repeated ear infections in my right ear for the last nine months. My neuro finally caught it on an MRI and I was referred to an ENT. I knew that I was not hearing as well out of my right ear but it was significantly worse than I thought. My ear drum has been permanently damaged and the small bones in my ear need to be replaced with prosthetics. They are going to do surgery to repair the ear drums and replace the bones. I am a grown adult that had never had ear problems before and I was not able to tell how bad things were. 

[mommyoffive]

11 hours ago, Ann.without.an.e said:

Thinking on it more, I guess they do chatter some? They just never did that intentional like baba dada mama, etc. They will make little noises and sounds though. They will say mum mum mum when they want to eat. I think that is the extent of their "words" though. 

I don't think it is hearing since they are light sleepers. The dog barking, a door slamming, etc and they are awake. 

I do not think it is apraxia unless I am misunderstanding what that is? They have really good motor skills. They did have some feeding issues when they were first born but it was lip and tongue ties that were fixed. They eat exceptionally well for their age. They use a spoon and fork fairly well. 

@Lecka The video is very interesting, but it makes me feel even more like it isn't ASD. They are more in tune with people around them than average. They are often more interested in interacting with people that they are comfortable with and each other than they are toys. They play pretend all the time. By the time they were one, their favorite game was to rock their little baby dolls and kiss their heads. They have a little kitchen set and they love to pretend to make dinner and then to feed us their pretend food. They are constantly coming to us for interaction. They blow kisses and played peek a boo at a young age. They are shy of strangers or unfamiliar people though, but many kids their age are so I don't think this is unusual. 

I would be running sound machines.  

[GoVanGogh]

No experience with twins, but I had a premature baby that was a late talker and didn’t sleep. I would absolutely push for evals now. You don’t regret getting testing done but will always regret waiting too long. Trust me on that one. We had a horrible experience with ECI, partly because DS was the first wave of premature babies to survive his condition so ECI employees had no real world experience and partly because we live in a small county and ECI services vary by region. If you have a large childrens hospital, I would look at what their services are. That is another huge regret I have: not going to the childrens hospital for general pediatric appointments and for evals. Our DS has severe aphasia due to a pre birth stroke and was actually still not speaking much at school age, which is what led us to homeschool. We ended up going through private therapy options, not through ECI or the school system. He had speech services well in to teen years. We do not regret the money we ended up spending for private therapy, it was well worth it, in our situation. DS did have hearing/ear infection issues that were also addressed. DS is a young adult now - new college grad - and just last night I joked about how much he now talks! He still doesn’t sleep, though.