It’s just a stage kids go through. When kids decide they want to start talking, they will. My oldest son didn’t start talking until he was over 2YO, after that, he has never shut up.
yup once they start talking they never shut up.
Lots of times the older sibling does all the talking for them.
My daughter was a late talker - she talked when she was ready to talk - and hasn’t shut up since!! (she’s now 23 and I couldn’t ask for a better daughter).
My son read late - it was not until 5th grade that he really got the hang of it and to this day he is a slow reader.
I come from a family of scientists, chemists, physicists, doctors and university professors of engineering - the ALL told me they couldn’t read until they were around 10 years old and to let him be until he was ready to read. And that is exactly what I did - kid is now studying electrical engineering and computer science at a UC.
My eldest daughter was talking very early on; but, my youngest daughter took her time about it. She never even did that baby-talk babbling kind of thing. It did have me worried.
So, I was out someplace and struck up a conversation with someone I knew and I mentioned that she hadn't really started talking yet, and that I was a little worried. An elderly woman sitting nearby, looked up and said exactly what you just posted. "Oh, those take a while to start; but, when they do start they never shut up." And, it was quite true.
She is now 26 years old, and is living in Japan teaching English and traveling all around the area. She is very intelligent and self-sufficient. So, she just did it on her own timetable; and, really, she is like that with everything. She sets her own pace, listens to her own drummer.
There is a joke about a couple that was worried that their child was 5 years old and hadn’t talked yet.
One night at the dinner table, the boy said “please pass the salt”.
His parents were astounded and greatly excited. After some conversation, they asked the boy why he didn’t talk until now.
He said “well, up until now, everything was going fine”.
There was a classic Hi & Lois cartoon that said it all.
Baby next to Trixie is babbling away. Trixie has a thought bubble over her head that that says something like: “I’ll talk when my speech is equal to my cognitive abilities.”
Ours had very little to say until well after 18 months. She is quite intelligent and certainly has no difficulty holding up her end of the conversation now. /grin
“It’s just a stage kids go through.”
Let’s be fair and accurate, as Sowell is trying to do.
“Late talking” is a stage SOME - NOT ALL - children go through.