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Are two languages confusing my young son?

 All children learn to understand language before they learn to speak it themselves, in a fairly standard developmental sequence. But there can be huge differences between children who are all developing normally but learn language at different paces, depending on what else they are learning at the same time and where their interests and skills lie.

In working out whether your son's speech could be delayed you firstly need to look at what he can understand.

As a rough guide you would expect a child of 20-24 months to be able to understand sentences and to recognise objects and pictures; in total knowing at least 50 ¿100 words.

In terms of what he can say his vocabulary should be increasing from 30 to 60 or 70 words, some of them joined up to make two word sentences of the type you describe.

He should be making up his own words and trying to tell you about things that have happened. He should start a lot of the talking and be constantly telling you things instead of waiting for you to ask him what he wants or to name objects for him.

From what you say his language does sound to be developing along the right lines but more slowly than I would expect for his age. Check what his level of understanding language is because if he understands everything you say to him his expressive speech may be just about to break forth.

Whenever a child appears to speak less than you would expect it is important to make sure he is hearing normally. Talk to your health visitor or GP who can fully assess your child's language development, check his ears and arrange a hearing test.

They can also check your son is developing appropriately in other respects such as his physical abilities including walking and hand-eye co-ordination and his social and behavioural skills.

Providing he is hearing normally and has an appropriate level of understanding language his expressive speech should come into its own in the next six months.

You can help by talking to him as much as possible, encouraging him to name objects and to ask for rather than point to something if he wants it.

It sounds as if he is already mixing with other children of similar age or slightly older. This is a great way to stimulate his language development. Do continue this for example at playgroup, nursery or friends' houses.

If his language is significantly delayed your son may be referred to a speech therapist for further assessment and treatment with useful advice on ways you can help.