Ming from Agents of Speech recommends waiting until age 2 to assess speech. At 18 months, limited talking might just be a slow start. By 24 months, kids have better attention and muscle control, making it easier to spot real delays and get accurate results.
If you're 18 month old in talking, all we can say is that there might be a delay. If there's a delay more than six months that warrants therapy and warrants intervention, right? So if 18 month old child just came to my clinic, let's say, and I would say, hey, might not be the best time to do anything, I'd rather you don't pay me money because I can't see much. And at 18 months, if he's not speaking yet, that's not really a delay just yet because we need to wait until six months later, which is, I'm not gonna try to do public math, right, but it's like 24 months, which is 2 years old, which is a much better age for children to sit on a chair or sit on the floor for extended period of time because of their muscles, their balance and so on, their attention span. For someone like myself to assess.
