“My toddler understands everything, but they haven’t started talking yet.” 

As a speech therapist, this is one of the most common observations I hear from parents when they come in for a speech and language evaluation. 

There are two common reasons why toddlers might understand everything but not be talking yet. I will explain these common reasons after I talk about how children develop strong understanding skills separate from their talking skills. 

How strong understanding skills develop, while talking skills fall behind

Let’s first break your observation up into its two parts. 

Your child seems to understand everything.

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They haven't started talking yet. 

I know you're reading this because you are concerned about the talking part, but before we get there, it’s important to talk about the fact that your child seems to understand everything.  

When it comes to speech therapy, language is divided into two parts:

1. Receptive language (Understanding skills)

2. Expressive language (Talking skills)

So when parents say their child seems to understand everything, they have watched their child follow a lot of different directions, understand the names of many different things, and answer some questions. 

If we were to put your observation into speech therapy terms, we would say that your child's receptive language, or understanding skill, seem to be on track.

But you also notice that your child isn't talking, you've noticed that their expressive language, or talking skills, don't seem to match what they can understand. 

Why toddlers understand everything, but haven’t started talking

Now, let's talk about some of the possible reasons why your child might understand everything, but not be talking yet.  While there are many different possible reasons, I am going to explain the 2 most common reasons that toddlers have great understanding skills, but are having a hard time learning to talk. 

The first reason is that a child might be experiencing a speech delay or an expressive language delay. 

Speech therapists use the term speech delay and language delay as a broad term to describe a communication development pattern in which children are developing skills in the order we would expect, but at a pace that's slower than other children their age. 

If your child has a speech delay, it could be that their ability to pronounce different sounds and words is developing slower than their peers. Many toddlers receive some speech therapy support to help boost their practice with pronunciation. 

If your child has an expressive language delay, it could be that they have had a lot of practice learning the meaning of words but a lot less experience trying to say words. Just as with speech delay, toddlers with expressive language delays often benefit from the support of a speech therapist to encourage them to practice talking more in order to develop their talking skills. 

The second reason is that a child might be having a hard time coordinating the movement of their mouth to make the sounds for speech.

In this case a child might be developing pronunciation skills out of order or not at all. 

It can be very challenging for some children to learn the coordinated, rapid, and precise movement of the lips, the tongue, and all the parts of your mouth that you use for talking. Children who have difficulty making the specific sounds for talking definitely benefit from visiting a speech therapist. Unfortunately many children in this category won’t make any (or much) progress until a speech therapist can identify and teach the toddler and their family specific strategies for making the different sounds the child is struggling with. 

If you're curious which specific sounds speech therapists listen for at different ages and in which order sounds develop, I've linked my toddler pronunciation guide for teaching speech skills at home here:

To quickly recap, if you've noticed that your child seems to understand everything, but they haven't started talking yet, this could be a sign that their understanding skills are on track, but their expressive language or talking skills are falling behind. The two most common reasons why are:

1. A child is developing talking or pronunciation skills at a slower pace than their peers

2. A child is having trouble learning the coordination for making sounds for speech

So when is it time to take action if your toddler hasn't started talking yet? And how do you find the right help?

As speech therapists, we listen for toddlers to say their first word by the time they're about 14 months old. (I know there's a lot of controversy with the new CDC guidelines, but I am sticking to my experience for this rule of thumb. I would always rather support a toddler in staying on track than waiting until they are clearly behind to help them. I’ve included a graph below to demonstrate how important starting early is!) 

So as a rough rule of thumb, I would say if your toddler is 14 months old, and they haven't said their first word, that it's a great next step to talk to your pediatrician about the possibility of an in-person or virtual speech and language evaluation. 

A visit with a speech therapist is truly invaluable. They'll be able to play with your child, and watch the different ways that they communicate, in order to identify what might be making it hard for your child to learn to talk, and what specific strategies and activities are going to be best suited for your child to support them along their communication pathway. 

And those of you who are thinking, "Yes, a speech and language evaluation sounds like the next step for my child," I've linked an article that explains what to expect at a speech and language evaluation for your toddler here: What to expect in a toddler speech and language evaluation. 

What can you do today to start supporting your child's expressive language or talking skills?

As I mentioned before, the first thing that you can do is talk to your child's pediatrician. Your child's pediatrician knows your child specifically, and will be able to support you in finding the next best step for you and your child. That might mean a speech and language evaluation. 

Once you’ve created a plan for a potential speech and language evaluation, you can start practicing at home. And I’ve got great news, it does NOT have to take a ton of time or effort to practice speech activities at home. 

The second thing you can do is sign up for my Free Foundations Of Speech Course. The program includes four lessons that teach you specific skills that you can use at home in order to encourage your child to grow their vocabulary. 

** Now available on YouTube ! I highly recommend checking out the worksheet, or the activity, in lesson number one (first video), which helps you choose how many vocabulary words to practice at a time, which words to choose, and how to incorporate the practice into your everyday life. After you’ve finished lesson 1, each lesson has a specific worksheet you can download to guide you through your at home practice! 

The third thing you can do is look online for what free programs and resources might be available in your state or in your county. I've included a link to the CDC website here [CDC Website for toddler support and speech therapy], that will direct you to your state's specific website, and help you find early intervention, or toddler learning programs in your community.

Here are some other common questions parents often ask when their toddler understands words, but hasn’t started talking:

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