Ep 211: Is My Child’s Speech Normal? Speech Milestones & When to Worry (and When Not To) with SLP Melissa Minney, Raising Little Talkers

In today’s episode, I’m joined by speech-language pathologist and mom of three Melissa Minney, founder of Raising Little Talkers® and the Little Talkers® course for parents of babies and toddlers. Melissa has helped tens of thousands of families feel more confident supporting their child’s speech and language at home. 

In this episode, we talk about:

• The most common speech concerns parents have
• How common late talking actually is – and how many kids catch up on their own
• What typical speech and language milestones look like (with realistic ranges, not scary rigid cutoffs)
• What really counts as a “word” (animal sounds, “uh-oh,” “wawa” for water, etc.)
• Simple ways to encourage language at home: narrating, following your child’s lead, using sign, music, and books
• Why screens displace real-life interaction 
• Myth-busting:
  • “Boys just talk later.”
  • “Two languages will confuse my child.”
  • “The older sibling talks for them, that’s why they’re delayed.”
  • “They’re just being stubborn and refusing to use their words.”
• If you’re worried about your child’s speech, or just want to be proactive, this episode is meant to reassure you, give you concrete benchmarks, and remind you that needing support doesn’t mean anything is “wrong” with your child. Your child is normal – and there is so much you can do at home to help them communicate and feel understood. 

Connect with Melissa / Raising Little Talkers®:

• Website & blog: raisinglittletalkers.com
  raisinglittletalkers.com
• Free class: “Help your toddler say more words” – learn the 5-step Little Talkers® method
  👉 learn.raisinglittletalkers.com/workshop
  learn.raisinglittletalkers.com
• Little Talkers® self-paced online course for parents of babies and toddlers (about 2 hours, broken into short, practical videos)
  raisinglittletalkers.com+1
• Instagram: @raisinglittletalkers

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Transcript

Unknown: 0:00

Hi everyone, and welcome back to your child is normal? I'm your host, Dr Jessica Hochman, today we're talking about something that I hear many questions about as a pediatrician, and that is concerns about speech and language development. Parents often ask me, Is my child speech normal? Should they be saying more words by now? Or do I need speech therapy? Or should I wait and see so to help answer all of this, I'm joined by speech language pathologist and mom of three, Melissa, Minnie, the creator behind raising little talkers and the little talkers. Course, Melissa has built an incredible online community. Over a million people follow her practical, warm guidance, and she's helped 1000s of families understand what's typical, what might need support, and what parents can do at home to help their child communicate. Today, we talk about what late talking really means, key speech milestones when an evaluation makes sense, and simple ways to encourage language in everyday life, and my favorite, we also bust common myths, like boys just talk later. Two languages cause confusion, and the idea that language delays appear when older siblings talk for them, Melissa's answers may surprise you. My hope is that you walk away from this episode feeling calmer, informed and empowered, because there really is so much you can do to support your child and their language development. So all right, let's get into it. My conversation with speech language pathologist, Melissa Minnie, from raising little talkers. Melissa Minnie, thank you so much for being here. I'm so excited. I'm so excited because, as you full well know, so many parents have concerns about their kid's speech, and they want to know what to do and when to get help and where to seek help. So I'm so happy that you're the person that's going to do it. Me too, and I love that we know each other in real life too. That's always fun. I agree. It makes it fun. And I was thinking about it, we have a lot in common. Yeah, we do. You have a pediatrician for a sister, yes, I have a speech therapist for my mother in law. Oh, yeah, who was a professor of mine. I forgot about that. That's so true. Yeah, yeah. So we have a lot of similar professions in our family. And you have three kids and I have three kids, yeah, we could go on and on. So okay, I would love to first start off tell everybody what drew you to becoming a speech therapist. Yeah. So I mean, gosh, I didn't go to school right away for that. I I started studying something else. So when I discovered what speech language pathology was, I was really intrigued, because it's an allied health profession. I love working with children. I was a camp counselor all my life, and so it seemed to meld health and working with kids. But I didn't have to go to medical school, so I was like, I love this so much. But ultimately, when I was writing my essay, actually, to get into the program, I had to really think about, why do I want to be a speech language pathologist, and what is it that really draws me to this? And ultimately it came down to the fact that I really believe communication to be the crux of every relationship that we have. And so if I can help children and families to be able to communicate better and connect better, that was really rewarding for me, and I think too, having become a parent myself, you really worry about your kids development, and you want them to be successful in school, in relationships, in life, and being able to communicate, is this thread that connects every area of your life. And that's not lost on me. It's a really amazing job. And how did you go from being a speech therapist to now a content creator with well over a million followers on Instagram? That's really amazing. Yeah, I'd love to share. It's kind of unbelievable, because if someone had told me this is what I would be doing 10 years ago, I would have not believed them. But basically, I had taken time off after my second child was born to be home with him, and I was just getting ready like at around he was nine months old to get back into the field, and then covid happened. And so I thought, Gosh, I could help parents through social media. So I started to share videos of me with my son. I basically tracked his development in real time and showing the things that I was doing with him as a speech language pathologist to support his language development during this time when we weren't able to be out and about in the world. And that just really resonated with a lot of parents who were home with their babies and toddlers and in the same boat. And it just blew up. And parents, I think, are really wanting to be proactive in their child's development. They're interested in taking courses online, and so that hasn't gone away. And so I've been doing this full time. For me, it's been very flexible, and it's just been a win win. Honestly, here we are today, and now you and you have a course, and you have a vibrant online community and such a great resource for so many families. It's really, really wonderful. Oh, thank you. So I know there are so many speech concerns and questions out there, but what would you say are the most common speech concerns that you see parents bring up to you honestly, like the big two would be that their child's not saying as many words? Words as peers or not talking at all yet, and they feel like they should be or that their speech is not clear, so their pronunciation is hard to understand. And those are the main two. A lot of times, though, it's just a lack of understanding what's typical. And once they learn, oh, it's actually okay that my child's not saying that many words or that their speech is unclear, that clears that up for them. But those are the main two. And so just to give parents an idea about how common speech delays are, can you share any statistics about how common delays actually are? And my second part to that question would be, how likely will they catch up on their own, without any intervention? Yeah, the statistics I'm going to give you are for something called late language emergence, which essentially would be late talking so for two year olds, between 10 to 20% can have late language emergence, and then it can raise up to 16 to 17 and a half percent for 30 to 36 month olds. So if you're a boy, males are three times more likely than girls to have late language emergence. And I know we'll talk about one of these myths later, about boys talking later than girls, and I'll come back to that. So as far as catching up on their own, about 70 to 80% of these kids will catch up on their own, but by kindergarten. So you don't know in the moment, I think, is what's tricky for parents. So I think for a lot of parents like myself included, I would not feel comfortable waiting until kindergarten to see if this pans out for my child. And there's nothing wrong with parents who do want to do that. That's a path that many parents take, and some other parents like myself feel like, oh my god, no. I just feel more comfortable doing something and supporting now, I've heard you say, and I actually completely agree with this, it's always better to check and see versus wait and see. Yes, and when I say check and see, I usually mean, you know, checking in with a speech language pathologist, you could do a consultation, you could do a full evaluation. And so if you're worried or concerned like, definitely talk to your pediatrician, talk to a speech language pathologist, and surround yourself, you know, with a team that can track your child's development and let you know that everything's going to be okay and that they may benefit from support or maybe not, maybe kick it down the road a couple months. See, I get this question a lot in my office where a parent expresses concerns about their child's speech and development and assess what they're looking for, and if they're the type that wants to be more proactive, my feeling on speech therapy, go for it. There's literally no harm, I think, in getting more assistance from a speech pathologist. My mother in law is a speech pathologist, as we mentioned the beginning. I loved watching her work with my kids. It was so helpful. I was learning from the way she was talking to my kids and teaching my kids. So I think if anybody listening is on the fence they're not sure if their kid is delayed, you might as well reach out to somebody, ask for help. It can't hurt. And you know, as someone who ends up seeing these kids down the line, I will tell you that parents say all the time to me, we wish we had done this sooner, and so because there's no harm in it, and you can often get services for free as well through your state. So if you just Google early intervention and the name of your state, we're in California, so you put that and there a website should come up with all the contact numbers. Sometimes you have to wait months. And so it's not foolproof, but it is certainly something to look into and see what's available, even though a lot of difficulties with speech and speech development clear up on their own over time, a lot of kids are very frustrated. You know, as you brought up in the beginning, to be able to express yourself, that's really important. And so oftentimes I'll meet a kid who's 15 months, 18 months, and they don't have many words, and they're very frustrated by it, and you just know, if they could communicate better, it would be a happier household. So in that situation as well, I think speech is a great avenue to think about, yeah, and sometimes I'll recommend speech therapy, not based on delays, but based on, like you said, What are you experiencing in your house? Is the parent frustrated? Is the child frustrated? Then let's support them. And I think that that's a really good point too, because for the people who may say, oh, like, I don't care, let's wait and see, I like to think of honestly the missed opportunities for these kids. They have so much they want to say and they can't say it. My daughter's just turning three now, I couldn't imagine if, if she wasn't able to express herself like She currently is, and maybe she would be fine by kindergarten, but if there were, like, some small tweaks, or some things I could do at home to support her, to enable her to communicate more like that will strengthen my relationship with her. And so even if their child isn't technically delayed, I can see why they would want to encourage that more Absolutely, you're making me think. Just to share a quick story, you're reminding me of when my daughter, who's now almost 15, she must have been under two years old, we went for a walk around Westwood, around the UCLA area, and I tried to get her in the car, and she just threw a major tantrum, a tremendous tantrum, and she kept yelling, puh, and I was trying to. Her in the car. She was refusing. She wouldn't let me buckle her in. So I thought, well, let me see what she's so upset about. Maybe she can somehow Tell me. So we started walking, and she directed me down the street, and we found this area where she had been playing, and she had put her purse on top of one of those boxes where newspapers are inside, and she was pointing to this box, pointed this box, and I noticed on the very top, she had laid her purse there. It was such a beautiful moment for me and my daughter, because when I saw it up there, and I said, oh my goodness, PA, meant purse, she left her purse, her favorite purse that she was carrying around with her all day, she realized she forgot it, and where she forgot it. And I was so happy to connect with her and to recognize that she had a truly good reason for her outburst, and so it's making me think about how frustrating it must be for toddlers when they have a lot to say and they just can't get it out. So hearing her communicate and understanding her was a big epiphany. Yeah, I love that. Okay, so now I'd love to talk about some of the general milestones for kids, just so parents who are listening might be able to recognize what be, quote, unquote normal, what might be a concern. And as I ask this, I just want to say that this is meant to be a general guideline, a big picture, and if you have any concerns, this would be a time to reach out, after this podcast, to a pediatrician, to a speech pathologist, because a lot of this is individualized. Wouldn't you say? Yeah, it is. And I like to look at the whole child and not just these skills. Actually, I'm going through this right now because my nephew, his preschool has some speech and language concerns about him, and I was really surprised. I know my nephew very well. I don't think he has anything going on with his speech and language development. So for peace of mind of my brother and sister in law, I'm doing some informal assessing of him. And it is just interesting. There is such a range of what is considered, quote, unquote, normal or typical, and two kids could look completely different on paper, but both be just fine. And so this is one of the main reasons that I tell parents not to compare to other children. And actually, I do prefer that parents compare to developmental norms, because it's it's not a moving target. I feel like when you're comparing to other kids out there, you don't know that kid could be way advanced and not really a good benchmark for what your child should be doing. And they also could be a couple months apart, and in toddler years, a couple months is like a lifetime of skills. They go through some really big changes in the span of short periods of time. And so I will share some typical norms that are usually like the first signs that parents come and reach out to a speech pathologist. And I will share a range, because they may be like way ahead of this range. They may have too many words that you can't even count, and then I'd say you're in a good spot. But if you're feeling like your child is below the lower number that I'm mentioning here, that doesn't necessarily mean that there's an issue, because we don't just look at how many words your child says to decide whether they're on track, we look at, how are they connecting with others in their environment? How are they communicating, if they don't have words, are they really great at using their gestures? Like your daughter, she only said, pa, pa, you didn't know that meant purse, but she was able to take you and point to what she wanted. So that's communication, even though it's not talking. So for parents, I think they expect you're supposed to have your first word by 12 months, and that's not always true. The first word typically comes between 10 and 14 months, and even if it didn't, even if a child was 14 months and doesn't have one word, I still would not be concerned, because there's so much variability in babies, and I would want to make sure they have more foundational skills in place. Are they using their body to communicate? Are they using their arms to gesture? Are they having joint attention, which is when they look at you and at another object or experience and then back at you, to make sure that you guys are sharing that experience. So like we used to have this little elephant toy that would move its ears and sing, and my son would look at it and look at me, kind of like, Mom, did you see that? And look back at it, and it's like we were sharing this experience. So that triangle of joint attention is something that we look for. It is true if you if you ever watch a kid who's around, you know, 12, 1314, months, they love to point. They love to point and show. So I agree, if a child doesn't have any words, but they're pointing to show, that's a very reassuring sign, yes, and honestly, it's not even technically considered delayed until they're not doing it by 18 months. And there are things you can do to help your child point more. I mean, sometimes it's just a parents don't point that much, and some cultures don't even point with their index finger. So like you know, keeping all of this in mind, they might point more visually or with their chin or lips. It's really the intention behind it, more so than the finger, the index finger point itself, but it's sharing your environment with other people that's what's important. Noticing that your child wants you to be. Part of their world wants you to see what's in their world. Yes, it's important. Yes. And then babbling is another foundational skill that we look at. Is your baby making lots of noise? Are they babbling? Are they making raspberries? Are they screeching? Are they using their voice and practicing so by 12 months, we typically see one to five words, but again, if none, I'm not concerned. I'm looking at these other things. Those are more important to me than words. By 18 months, the range would be 10 to 50 words. So 50 would be the average. So if your child has less than 10 words, it doesn't necessarily mean that they're delayed, but to me, it's a good indicator to look into it further, like you said, assess. Are they frustrated? Are they feeling like they want to say more and they can't introducing sign language is also a great way to help relieve frustration and give children a way to communicate while their speech production is still developing. I loved using sign language with my kids. It it's so cool, especially because they can request things that maybe are not right in front of them that they wouldn't be able to point to. And one example I love giving was when my son was around 18 months he wanted to go outside in the backyard. Normally, if we're in the living room, he would just go to the window and, like, point and tell me he wanted to go outside. But we weren't over there. We were in our bedroom, so he wasn't near the window, so he was able to sign outside to me and tell me that he wanted to go outside. And I just thought that was so cool, and I knew what he wanted. And if I didn't, it could have resulted in a meltdown or something, because I would have been like, I don't know, I don't know what you need, and that can be really frustrating for both parent and child. It's such a great tool to communicate. I'm curious, as part of your course, do you teach any sign language? So a long time ago, I had a course, and I actually include it, if you if parents purchase my course, like after they watch my free class, it's actually a bonus that it's is included. I used to call it Baby Sign basics, but I changed the name actually from signs to speech, because for the kids that I'm working with, the goal is that they're going to be talking, and this is really a stepping stone for kids who eventually I want them to speak. So I'm always pairing the sign with the word, but it's been so amazing for all three of my kids who weren't even delayed. It's just a great tool and way to connect with your baby. And some words are harder to say than other words, so they might not be able to say a word until later, but they can sign it now, and it just alleviates a lot of frustration. And then, for 24 month olds, the range of words that we typically see is 50 to 300 words. Again, that higher number is going to be that average. So some kids are going to have more words than that. And I always get parents asking me, Well, how would I know if they have more words than that? I'm like, Well, you probably wouldn't, because you're not wouldn't, because you're not counting at that point, if your child's really talkative already and you feel like they have more words than you can count, then you probably don't need to count them. If their language is just emerging and you're keeping track, it's always fun when you get to that point where you lose count, because it's it starts happening really quickly. But in those beginning stages, it can be really fun to track and count those words. 50 words at 24 months is a significant milestone. Typically, if a child is not saying 50 words by 24 months, I do want to support them, because at that age, there is the shift to word combinations as well. So those are the two, like really big ones that I look at at 24 months. Do they have at least 50 words, and are they starting to combine words that might look like mama up if a child has tons of nouns like they're great at labeling stuff, but they don't really have a lot of action words or location words or description words, they may struggle to combine words, because you need variety to be able to mix and match and combine. So if I have a parent who comes to me is like, Oh, my child's not speaking in sentences yet, or they're not combining yet, I will ask, well, how many words do they have? And let's look at those words, and what kind of variety do they have. In pediatric training, they used to teach us an easy way to remember it when a child's two, you want them combining two words and jumping with two feet. That was the other. The other. Ooh, I like that one too. Yeah, and following two step directions, another two. And then for a three year olds, the words that we would expect are 250 to 1000 plus. I mean, it just grows exponentially after age two. And this is another reason why I feel really strongly about supporting kids who are not meeting these milestones at age two. Because what we're looking at developmental norms, their vocabularies are increasing exponentially, and so if you're behind even for a couple months, you will appear much behind your peers and may have a hard time communicating at the same level, and so it's never too late, but if we can get them early and close that gap before it grows, that's really like a sweet spot that we like to get in and support families, a question that comes up a lot. I'll hear from a lot of parents that a word doesn't count, and when I. Hear what their words are, they're actually truly saying more words than the parent realizes, like animal sounds, or there may be words that the parents understand that a stranger wouldn't understand, but they use that same sound to describe the same object every time. So can you expand on that? What actually counts as a word? Yeah, so you named a bunch of them. So animal sounds, what we call like, exclamatory sounds like, Uh oh, wow, oh boy. That's two words, but it would count as one, actually, if it was said together and then words like sound effects that you might hear in your environment, like Vroom for a car, beep, beep. Or, let's say, your microwave makes a certain beeping noise, and that's what your child says to refer to the microwave. That counts as a word as long as you can spell it. That's usually my rule of thumb. If you can spell it and it uses speech sounds and they're consistently using that word like you said, and they're purposeful about it, then those count. I like this reminder, because sometimes a parent will think my child's really behind. They can only say 10 words, but by the end of talking it through with them, they can actually say many, many more words. So thank you for explaining all that. Yeah, yeah, I get that a lot too. Or they'll think that if a child doesn't say a word completely, that it doesn't count. So like, ball, they might say ba, or dog might be da, and so they're called Word approximations. It's basically your child just simplifying the word because they don't have the fine motor skill yet to say those speech sounds fully but those definitely count, for sure. So yeah, hopefully that gives some parents some peace of mind, and they can look at their list and be like, Oh my gosh, they're saying way more than I thought. I like hearing that around too. Is when you want to think about speech referrals, because sometimes, when they're little, when they're a year, 15 months, they seem too little to really benefit from seeing a speech pathologist. So you're not wrong. It just depends on what the focus is. For me, if I'm working with children that young, my focus is training the parents, because parent coaching is going to be the most impactful at that age, since parents are with their child for the majority of the day, or doesn't have to be the parent could be grandparent, whoever, any caregiver. You know, research shows us that toddlers learn best and babies with people they're familiar with and during their daily routines. So if you come to speech therapy for 30 minutes once a week, that's not going to be where the magic happens. The magic happens when you the parent, are implementing what you've learned every day, day in, day out, during bath time, during feeding time, during walks. You know, whatever you're doing with your your baby or your toddler every day, you can kind of sprinkle in those strategies that you've learned. So I certainly wouldn't write off speech therapy for that age, but I would want the parent in the room and actively participating. And I think that there's been a shift from when I was in grad school, I actually didn't learn anything about parent coaching. I had to learn that on my own and get more training on it. But in the beginning, when I used to work in early intervention and see kids, the parents would be like, bye, I'm going to go take a shower while I'm, like, working with their child at their house. And I didn't know any better. So I'd be like, great, you take a break. You know, I'll be working with your child. And then we kind of catch up at the end, and I'd try and explain what I did and what they should do for their homework. But once I realized that, no, I actually need the parents in there with me and set that expectation. Honestly, the results were amazing. It makes complete sense that it's better for the parent to be there. As you said, they're with their child all the time, and you're with them a half an hour a week. So that intuitively, makes a lot of sense. Yeah, and I don't blame parents for wanting to go take a shower or whatever, because I didn't know any better, honestly, at the time either. And they do improve, but just much slower. If the parents are carrying over like the results are so much faster, and the parents feel really proud that they've been integral to the journey and helping their child progress. So it's really, I think it's a win win. It gives parents peace of mind too. I know for me, personally, I'm just kind of lean more anxious, and so when I can be helpful, I feel much better. I just feel like I'm doing right by my child when I'm able to help them. And I find that parents who take my classes or who I work with in person, they feel really good about knowing what to do to help their child at home. And you made a really good point that kids are much more comfortable with who they're familiar with. I know that when I see a kid for their physical exam, very frequently, when I assess their speech and ask about their speech, the child during the visit is quiet. They don't say anything. And the parents often say to me, I promise you, at home, they talk a mile a minute. They're always talking. I don't know why they're not talking here, but I think there's a lot to do with a child being comfortable, so that makes perfect sense. Yeah, that can happen at preschools, too. And actually, I always tell parents, like, just show videos of your kids, show your pediatrician a video. Show your speech pathologist a video, because even when we assess kids, it's just a snapshot in time. And it doesn't give us the big picture. Your child doesn't know us yet they're not comfortable. So if you can show me a video so I can see what they're capable of and what they're where they are in their development, that's really helpful. What is the best way for parents to encourage language at home? Do you think flashcards are helpful? I say this because a lot of parents I see quizzing their kids with flashcards, and my mother in law has feelings that there are other ways to go about it, to support kids at home. So what would you say are some tips for parents that may be helpful when they're at home, working on speech? Yeah, I'd say, I mean, if your child likes flash cards, all the power to you. One of the biggest things I teach parents is to follow your child's lead, and so your child's more likely to learn doing something that genuinely interests them, versus you being like, come sit down. We're going to work on speech right now. If they're not interested in that, they're not going to get anything out of it. So one of the easiest, low lift things parents can do is just to be talkative themselves throughout the day. One thing I like to teach parents is to narrate what they're doing. Kind of be like a sports caster, like, let's say you're preparing their snack. You might have them in the kitchen with you, and you might talk through what you're doing. Oh, mommy's looking in the refrigerator. I'm getting your strawberries out. Let's wash them. We're gonna cut your strawberries. Cut, cut, cut. So you're just adding language to what you're already doing, and your child, hopefully is engaged involved in that activity too. So if your child was in the other room, that's not necessarily going to be beneficial. They need to have context about what you're talking about. And I say that because a lot of parents will say, Well, is it the same benefit if they hear the TV or if they hear songs, or if they hear even like a children's story time podcast or something. I'm like, love stories like nothing against that. But it's not the same. If they're going to learn the meanings of the words that you're saying, they need to be seeing what you're talking about in context. I appreciate you bringing up that point, because I do think a lot of parents think that if a child's watching educational TV, that that's as beneficial as talking with your child in real life, but it's not the same. I mean, I think kids can and do learn words from watching TV, but talking with somebody in real life, I think, is the best way for a child to make progress. Yeah, absolutely. I mean, there's decades of research on screens that they really fail to teach kids three and under, as much as a live interaction. We know that, and we know that two to three year olds who spend more than two hours a day watching TV are at higher risk for having language delays. So there's nothing necessarily inherently wrong with a screen, but the way I like to explain it to parents is that it's an opportunity cost. If your child's in front of a screen. They're not having a face to face interaction with a human being. I do think that there is benefit to using screens with your child so long as you're actively engaged. It's called co viewing, which I'm sure you've you know about, but asking them questions relating the content that they see to their real life. But I think the biggest takeaway is just that screen time displaces that parent child interaction, and that's so critical for early language and social development that I just want to make sure that parents are balancing out their child's getting some TV. Make sure you're filling up their face to face tank too. So this is helpful. So reminding parents that there's no substitute for real life speech, that narrating is really helpful. And a question about narrating, do you want a child to actually look at your lips while you're talking? Does that matter that much? I've seen some speech therapists gesture towards their lips as they're talking. Yeah, it can certainly help. But that wouldn't be natural for them to be looking at your mouth all the time, babies who are developing speech and language are looking at your face and mouth. They're very interested in how it moves and what you're saying. And so if you have a child who's maybe playing and they're not looking at you, it can be helpful sometimes to this is just like my lip gloss, but I will, like, hold it up to my face if they wanted this toy, I might say, let's say it was a car, car, car. You want the car. So they look up to the item. If it was down here and they weren't looking at my face, this would just bring them back to that joint attention of connecting with me, which can be helpful too. So I'd say, if your child's not looking at your face very much, you can bring attention to your face by holding objects of interest up around your face at times, but I wouldn't expect that all the time. I love music, and I'm just curious, do you incorporate music as a technique and tip to help parents with speech and language development? Yeah, I do. I love using music. Music is naturally repetitive, especially children's music, and often, sometimes slower, which I really like, and so I use, not only like listening to music, but taking what we've listened to and applying it to our every day. So if your child really likes a song, you might be able to use that tune and kind of swap out some words. For example, everyone knows, like a cleanup song. Of some kind that help your child clean up. You can do that with hand washing and teaching the steps. I have one hand washing song I really love that actually teaches you like tops and bottoms, tops and bottoms. That's teaching you like which parts of your hands you should be washing. And we can do it while we sing. Children love music, and they're really drawn to it, and it can definitely help with learning new words and routines in your home. I love it. It seems to me like the big picture is just encourage talking with your kids and keeping it fun. I think why my mother in law had feelings about quizzing was it takes away the joy from the talking. You're putting a child on the spot. It's not as fun. It's not as spontaneous, but I thought as natural though, to be honest, either, like, if you can drill your child on some flashcards and they can do it, that's not communicating. So I think, yes, the fun piece of it is important, but drilling flashcards is not communication, right? Those are two different things. So you're memorizing and you're regurgitating your exactly, but it's not in context. It's not building the foundation for natural conversation, yeah, if you're thinking about the reasons that kids are communicating, or any humans, really, but some basic ways that young toddlers communicate is to make requests, to comment on something in their environment, to ask questions, to answer questions, to negate or say they don't want something. So if you're let's say your child can look at a picture of a ball and they can say ball, because you've basically trained them that that's what they say when they see this picture that doesn't necessarily carry over. You could teach the same thing by playing with a ball with your child and saying ball, and rolling the ball and throwing the ball and including all these other words, requesting the ball, asking, where is the ball when it rolls under the couch, it's more fun, like you said, but also just real life. And so again, unless your child likes flash cards, we have some flash cards at home that have like texture on them, and my kids really liked them, but I didn't drill them. It's similar to a book and that we would look at the pictures, and we would touch the textures and talk about what we see on the card. But yeah, I do shy away from drilling at this age. For older kids who are maybe like, need help with pronunciation of a certain speech sound, they do need drill and lots of repetition, and they're older, so they can sit at a table and do that with you, hopefully within the context of some sort of game. So that makes it a little more fun. But for the little ones, three and under, definitely no drill. You want to make it as real life context as possible. Okay, so now I would briefly like to clear up some myths that I hear a lot about speech. And so if you don't mind, we'll go through these myths, because I think you are the right woman for the job. So the first one I hear is, Do girls really talk earlier than boys? So no, yes and no, but basically, research shows that boys as a group do talk later than girls. That doesn't mean every boy will talk later than every girl, because whenever I post about this online, parents will be like, Well, my son talked before my daughter. And I'm like, Okay, well, it's not every person we're looking at. Looking at patterns here, but the difference is taken into account when milestones were developed, so boys are still expected to meet their milestones on time. And I think what confuses parents is when they hear a blanket statement like that girls talk earlier than boys, or boys talk later than girls, that if their child is delayed to talk that's normal or expected, but it's really not like being a boy is not a reason for them to talk late or to have a language delay. And in fact, I mentioned earlier that boys are two to three times more likely to have language difficulties than girls. So if you have a boy who is struggling to meet communication milestones, check and see. Don't wait and see because or think, like, Oh, boys just develop later and and chalk it up to that. So that's not to scare anyone, but just to educate and empower. Because I've had a lot of parents tell me that they didn't seek help because they were like, Oh, I just thought it was fine that my son was talking later. The other thing I noticed is, I'll talk to a lot of families where, let's say they had a daughter first and then a son, and they compare the two, and maybe the daughter was just advanced for her age, and they feel like their son is quite delayed, when really he's just within the normal range. And so I also see that come up a lot. Yeah, yeah, that's the other thing about that range that I talked about. There are some kids who just have more advanced language. And like we know all of our kids have strengths, and some kids have more physical strength. Maybe they're really good at sports, or they're athletic, and your other child is more verbal, and it all evens out later on, but it's just not a reason for delay. I think parents misunderstand what is a delay versus the typical range. So it's not necessarily a delay, but they could be on the lower end of that range, and that's still considered normal or expected. Of all the milestones I go over with parents, the range of speech is very wide. I think it's wider than a lot of people expect. Yeah, it is, and I don't know why, but, sir. Certain websites like Mayo Clinic, CDC, they usually give like one number which is closer to the average. And so it can scare a lot of parents, because they see this really high number, and they're like, what my child's nowhere near that number. But that doesn't necessarily mean they're delayed. Now, another common question or concern that I hear is about when kids hear two languages at home. Is there ever a time when two languages may cause a delay to the point where a parent should only encourage a single language heard at home? No. So raising a child bilingual will never cause a delay. If a child is already delayed, it might be harder for them to learn two languages. However, that's not a reason to not teach it to them, especially if it's really important to the family that they pass on their heritage language and they want them to be able to communicate with other family members who maybe don't speak one of the languages and only speak the other one. So I would never recommend to a family that they should drop a language and only focus on English, for example. And I think that is a common still somehow in 2025 suggested thing by many speech pathologists. And then it's really sad for those families who then stop teaching their heritage language so it doesn't cause delays. But for those who are delayed, it can be a little harder for them, but it's still worth that effort. For many families, I find it is so worth the effort. First, it feels so effortless for a kid when they hear a language from a young age and it works. I hear a lot of different languages that kids hear from one parent, for example, like I'm thinking of a family where the father only speaks in French to their children, and the kids have picked up French beautifully. It's really, really fascinating to watch. They hear it from one person, and they can speak French and English very well. And then what I think is also truly a benefit, is that a lot of those kids, if they don't learn that second language, they have trouble communicating with their grandparents. I can't think of an instance where I have not encouraged families to speak both if they can, no, I would always ask them, like, is this important to you? And if it is important that your child learns this language, then teach it to them. So if parents have an opportunity, you heard it from the speech therapist, incorporating both languages at home is a great idea. Yeah. Okay. Something else that I hear all the time, oftentimes I'll see a second child in the family, for example, who is speech delayed, and the parents don't seem concerned, because what they'll say is, well, the older sibling is doing the talking for them. Is that really a thing? Do kids have speech delayed because the older sibling talks for them? No, not a thing. I'll bust that myth right now. So birth order does not cause language delays, but it does have an impact on language development in general. So I'll share some interesting facts about that. But yes, older children can sometimes be more talkative than their younger siblings, but that should not cause them to be delayed. If they are delayed, that's probably why their sibling is talking for them so much because they're not talking. That's not one causing the other, but first born children, they may get more one on one attention from parents, as we know, because we only have one child at that point. But later born children benefit from hearing and participating in conversations between parents and siblings, so both environments are okay and don't cause any lasting developmental differences later born children, the research shows that they may have more advanced use of pronouns, like he, she, them, they most likely from overhearing conversations between their caregivers and older siblings that's more mature and complex than The language that they heard as a baby or toddler. And first born children may have more advanced vocabulary and grammar skills, while later born children have more advanced conversational skills. Again, they're being exposed to multiple people conversing, they may have increased motivation to learn and use this social skill to be included in the conversation. And again, both environments are great. One isn't better than the other, and then the last one is just that later born children have no difference in their vocabulary development past the first 50 words. However, they may reach that milestone a little later than their first born sibling. But again, this is still within the normal, typical developmental range. It's not considered a delay. So if you were to look at both siblings, the older sibling may have reached their 50 word milestone first before that second sibling, but both of them within the normal range. So again, these are not reasons for kids to have delays, and I think that that's where it becomes a myth, because someone along the line somewhere, misinterpreted the data, I think. And I think the big picture here is we don't want to miss an opportunity for your child to get help if we're making assumptions that they wouldn't benefit from extra help. Yeah, that's a good summary of that. Any other myths that you'd like to bust? While we're at it, or do you think we covered most of them? This one, I don't know if I'd call it a myth necessarily, but it is something I'd like to bust, is that toddlers who aren't talking are quote, unquote, just being stubborn. Because all toddlers are stubborn at times. That's really normal and expected, and we're all going to experience stubborn toddlers, but it doesn't cause language delays. And so if you have a child who is really not making progress, they're not meeting their milestones, a lot of parents will use language like they refuse to talk, they won't use their words. And I'm like, well, let's reframe this. Maybe they are not able to use their words in that moment. They're probably doing the best they can. I think it's important that we can add language to what our child is doing without this pressure and expectation that they'll do it back, because they're still learning, and we're still teaching them. And what I like to say to parents is they're filling up their bucket for later, for when they're ready to use those words, but that using gestures, as we talked about, is so important, and using signs is a great way for them to communicate, so let's honor those modes of communication too. Thank you for that. This has been so helpful. I could talk about speech all day. I find it incredible how I can see a one year old who says zero words, one word, and then a year later they're combining words together. They understand everything you say to them, it's truly, truly fascinating. Yeah, it's really fun to watch. I think even, like before I had kids, I knew all about this, but then experiencing it with my own children was really fun. Actually, I don't know if you felt that way as a pediatrician, but I loved seeing them grow and learn these skills in real time. Yeah, and then before you know it, you have to watch the words you say, because they are sponges. They really are Yeah. Okay, so for parents that want to learn more from you, tell everybody right now. Tell them about your course where they can find you. Where can they learn more from you? Yeah. So my Instagram is raising little talkers. I have one my main course that I've had since 2021 still going strong. It has helped so many families with toddlers under age three, with supporting their speech and language development at home, I basically go over all those foundational areas that we talked about earlier, babbling, gestures, imitating is another big one. Actually, I find a lot of parents of late talkers say they don't mimic my words, and when your child starts mimicking, that's really when their vocabulary starts to take off, because they're getting that practice and I cover joint attention in there, and also saying words, obviously combining words, growing their vocabulary variety as well. My raising little talkers course is just called the raising little talkers program. I have a free class for parents who maybe just want to dip their toe in or get an overview of what I cover in my more in depth course. And my free class is five steps to get your toddler talking. And both of those you can read about and learn more about it. Raising little talkers.com and also on my Instagram page, there's a link there as well. And for families who want to take my free class it and then at the end they decide they do want to go deeper into my full program, there's a discount at the end too. And I'm just curious, how long is the full class? Is it a big commitment? No, it's really not. It's two hours long. And I've had parents like binge it, but then other parents watch during nap time and complete it over the course of a couple weeks. But it's really short and manageable. And I honestly on purpose, like I know we're so busy as parents of little kids that we don't have time to sit down and watch a really lengthy thing so it doesn't have any fluff in there. I just tell you what you got to know and get out So Melissa, Minnie, this has been so helpful. Thank you very much. And this has been really fun. Yeah, thanks for having me. Thank you for listening. And I hope you enjoyed this week's episode of your child is normal. Also, if you could take a moment and leave a five star review, wherever it is you listen to podcasts, I would greatly appreciate it. It really makes a difference to help this podcast grow.