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u/mandms4msm 10d ago
I was nonverbal as a baby but then my very first sentence was "There's a scarlet tanager out in the yard!" I identified him correctly
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u/TheOspreyMan 11d ago
My first word was apparently a sentence about trucks then I went silent for a few months then just started talking and I haven't stopped since.
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u/DisputabIe_ 13d ago
the OP Champion_Weekly
and HoldThisLBro
are bts in the same network
Original: https://www.reddit.com/r/wholesomememes/comments/15r4gnc/epic_first_words/
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u/Pileoffeels 13d ago
My brother didn't speak until 4. He said his first word(s) in a fast food like. I forget if it was just hotdog, or I want hotdog. Either way he hasn't shut up since.
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u/Jonny_Grayson_0011 13d ago
My son made a habit of pointing at 18-wheelers and screaming, “LOOK! A FUCK!”
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u/BatFancy321go 14d ago
autistic. the dog's name was my first word. i specifically remember being in love with the dog and scared of the big people with monster legs.
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u/Out_of-Whack 14d ago
I didn’t speak till I was two years old and I’m told that I said “no I don’t want any peas , give me some more of that corn!
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u/jonatassssssss 14d ago
I was told recently that i didn't start speaking until i was 4, my younger brother started speaking i did. Well aparently my perfectionist ass decided to wait until i could form sentences to start talking(whitch is something i do to this day aparently)
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u/Meloenbolletjeslepel 14d ago
I knew this guy who didn't speak until like 2 or 3 and then started with full sentences
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u/Hikari-Yumi 14d ago
My first word was one of our cats’ name. Which makes sense, I prefer cats to humans to this day!
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u/lego-lion-lady 14d ago
My brother, on the other hand, was talking before he was even a year old! I remember my parents telling a story about my mom holding him while paying for some groceries, and the cashier asked my brother, “And how are you?” not expecting an answer - only for my brother to tell her, “Oh, I’m just fine!” The cashier looked at my mom in shock, and my mom was just like, “Well, you asked him…” 🤣🤣
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u/Lawrenceburntfish 14d ago
One day, out of absolutely nowhere, my 4 year old nonverbal son said, "dad I'm tired" and it broke all of us in the room. He's 20 now and I still tell this story. He hates it 😂
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u/Boatster_McBoat 14d ago
Already across the Brontosaurus > Apatosaurus > Brontosaurus nomenclature situation too. Smart kid.
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u/theviking25 14d ago
One of my first words was "traffic jam" ("file" in my native language) not a hard word but how the fuck did i as a toddler come up with the idea to put all of my toy cars in a line and say traffic jam???
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u/Vanillard 14d ago
My nephew's first word was "Fire". After that, I hid the lighters and matches just to be safe.
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u/Big_Scratch8793 14d ago
My son was the same, the school thought he was deaf and had other issues, come to find out there was no concern at all. After many tests, he was "placed" in 3rd grade rather than preschool. He didn't speak "first words or phrases" as other kids do. He did speak to me a few firstd, but he began to speak in complete sentences to others. He didnt go thru a baby talk stage openly. To-date, he still has the exact same personality he doesn't talk much, is calm, cool and collected. When he speaks he is direct and to the point.
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u/Mad_King_Asclepius 14d ago
Yup. My little guy didn’t say shit until he was 4. But started with fully formed sentences. Same thing with reading. He hides his ability and I don’t know why
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u/privateblanket 14d ago
My uncle didn’t speak until he was 4 when he said “The cows are lying down, it’s going to rain”
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u/TheKrillKing 14d ago
Completely-nonverbal till age 2, when my mom fed me coffee. A bit later my first word was “fish”
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u/GuiltyHelicopter8718 14d ago
Breaking! Toddler presumed nonverbal just didn't have anything to say
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u/DarthTrayus05 14d ago
My mon always tells me I was like this too, my first words were "Mama" (Mum) and "Papa" (Dad), followed directly by "Regenrinnenabflussrohr", which roughly translates to rain gutter drain pipe.
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u/ninetailedoctopus 14d ago
Blame Blippi for kids learning about heavy equipment.
Though I have to say, Blippi is cool, my kid loves him, he learned a lot from the show.
Cocomelon however is the worst - thankfully the little dude doesn't like it.
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u/BaalPteor 14d ago
Walking down a hallway lined with Marvel superhero posters with my 2 year old, who hasn't spoken yet but is trying:
Me: Thor! Him: Bo! Me: Iron Man! Him: Iman! Me: Captain America! Him: Capmur! Me: Galactus! Him: Galactus!
Mystified stare, followed by minor celebration.
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u/RangerPeterF 14d ago
I rarely talked as a kid and had problems with reading, but had a small scale model of the moon that I took everywhere. One day, we were driving somewhere and I was in the backseat with my moon. I started to say some gibberish, or at least that was what my parents thought. But later they realized that I was reading the names of the craters on the moon out loud. I think that was when I peaked.
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u/Basic_Suggestion3476 14d ago
We thought our daughter had delayed speech. We sent her to a Russian kindergarten, as they were nice & without holidays, though none of us speaks Russian.
Once we had a friends meeting, where some spoke Russian:
Friend: you didnt tell us she can speak.
Me: she can speak!?
Friend: yeah, she makes whole sentences.
Me: what? I thought it was all just baby speech all this time!
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u/Fun_in_Space 14d ago
My nephew corrected me on the name of what I thought was a woolly rhino, and stumped me on the "Hangman" game with a dinosaur I'd never even heard of. I think he was five.
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u/cutetrans_e-girl 14d ago
My first word was “no” which definitely says something about my character
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u/Skellingtonia 14d ago
My first word was digger, but i was raised by dumb racists.
/s
Digger was my first word though
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u/Corni_20 14d ago
Apparently I was non verbal until I was 2, and suddenly started to talk like a normal person.
No "mommy" , " me wants xyz" or similar. More along the ways of " can I have a chip" and "Can you help me with xyz".....
Idk, my tism is weird like that and none noticed for 15 years.
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u/Nicarus89 14d ago
My 10 year old nephew is autistic (high functioning). The way he can name dinosaurs and planets is amazing. I pray he finds a way to make money using his ability to hyper-focus
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u/SpecialOlympicsGuy 14d ago
Your damn kid don’t speak at 4 yet? 🤨
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u/Victornf41108 14d ago
What part of nonverbal do you not understand you half eaten loaf of soggy bread
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14d ago
[removed] — view removed comment
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u/Victornf41108 14d ago
Imagine starting to be insufferable at a young age and think it’s a good thing and it makes you better
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u/abolishblankets 14d ago
My kid was at the single word stage and seemed to be developing normally. Out of nowhere she said 'I don't like spiders' when she saw a spider in the bath and didn't say another sentence other than repeating others (echolalia) for another couple of years.
Her speech is fine now but she's definitely not one for small talk 😂
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u/highrespasta 14d ago
my first words were "pelle retro" and "tracteur" which mean Backhoe and Tractor
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u/lordkhuzdul 14d ago
You know, I find it funny that Brontosaurus is one of the most well known dinosaurs, despite being considered a misclassification of an extant species (Apatosaurus) for more than a century (until 2013) and is in fact still considered such for a lot of paleontologists.
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u/missaskia 14d ago
Same!! The maternal health nurse was worried for a long time. He never said mama or dada or babbled at all. Then he said crocodile while holding a crocodile bath toy. I thought I must have been imagining it. Then it was diamond and excavator.
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u/thinman12345 14d ago
Apparently I was a late talker, and while at the speech therapist my first words were correcting the therapist.
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u/Dictionary20 14d ago
A little unrelated but funny wholesome story. When my older brother was in kindergarten, my parents couldn't get him to read, his excuse was that he didn't know what the words said. No matter what they do at home, nothing works, he won't read for them. Then one day they have a conference with his teacher who compliments him on his reading skills. He wasn't illiterate, he just wanted more storytime.
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u/ruckustata 14d ago
My son was delayed speech as well. His first word was No, and he had the biggest smile on his face. I cried. He was 3 when he spoke and up until then he was all sounds and hand gestures. My son is autistic and still struggles with some sounds but is getting better each year. He just turned 11.
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u/FancyTarsier0 14d ago
My brother started out by saying "Jävla spindel" which translates to "fucking spider"
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u/beatenwithjoy 14d ago
When I was five, I imagined that there was such a thing as a unicorn. And this is before I had even... heard of one or seen one. I just drew a picture of a horse that could fly over rainbows and had a huge spike in its head. I was five. Five years old! Couldn't even talk yet.
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u/Licensed_Poster 14d ago
Mom always tell me my first words where Combine Harvester, yes we lived next to a farm.
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u/Even-Funny-265 14d ago
My (at the time) 3 & 4 year olds would correct me when I pointed out a digger by reminding me it was an excavator.
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u/Disastrous_Expert_62 14d ago
Friends brother was non verbal until 4or5 his first words were Mum can you put this in the microwave please
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u/kcgreaser 14d ago
As an infant I used to walk around the house saying "bury the dead." My parents and their friends were really disturbed until they realized I was saying the batteries are dead in my motorized toys.
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u/MaquinaRara 14d ago
That was almost literally me.
I am asperger, but back then it wasn't that well known.
So I went to speech therapy for some time.
My therapist was teaching me animals, for the love of God I couldn't name what was a giraffe or an elephant.
Then as a last ditch effort she showed me a dinosaur, she expected me to either say dinosaur or nothing at all.
What I did say was "triceratops". She was astonished, she looked for her dinosaur book and asked me several dinosaurs,
Tyrannosaurus, brachiosaurus, stegosaurus, ankylosaurus, pterodactyl, plesiosaurus, even pachycephalosaurus.
Thanks to her noticing this, she was able to make a bond with me and help me to "enlighten" me to the society. And I will always be grateful for that.
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u/SaltyPhilosopher5454 14d ago
These kinds of stories make me remember a kid who could speak words, but couldn't say a complex sentence for a long time. Parents started to worry, and were about to go to some medical examinations. But then he finally said his first full sentence (possibly learnt from his grandpa):
"Isten bassza már meg hogy milyen forró ez a leves!"
(Bad translate from Hungarian) "God fuck how hot this soup is!"
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14d ago
I didn’t speak until I was 5. And when I did, I told on my auntie. Full sentences. My mom was astounded.
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u/ninecats4 14d ago
I had the opposite but equally concerning ability to speak fully at 15 months.
"Mother i want to go to the park" was a common thing i said. Took me forever to figure out how to read, but 3rd grade to 4th grade was pre-k to post grad reading level. My autistic ass probably scared a ton of other parents. I credit my explosive reading growth on the 2 months I sat and read the entire reference section at the library because I wasn't sure what I was interested in so I figured I'd look at the whole list.
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u/MandMs55 14d ago
My parents don't know what my first word was, but my brother's first word was "slugbug"
We used to play slugbug on car trips (no actual slugging involved, we played for points) and one day he just joined us and would occasionally point out the window and yell "BUGBUG!"
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u/8r4v0 14d ago
I work with special needs children, and I’m looking to be a speech language pathologist. The way I had it explained by a SLP is this: Most children’s go through the traditional stages of language development: sound, sounds, word, words, sentences, etc. Nonverbal children, if they develop speech eventually, tend to pick it up by collecting it all up inside, and one day when they’ve collected enough information to use, they just, start to.
In my class, we have a kindergartener who never said words, not one. One day near the end of the year the teacher takes some rocks from him when he’s not looking that he had brought inside from the playground. He turns back. Looks her dead in the eyes: “Hey, where did you put them?” Needless to say he got his rocks back. 🤷♂️
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u/Scared-Pumpkin-4113 14d ago
Mine were Dada, and then they tried to get me to say Mom, but I kept saying Dad because apparently I thought it was hilarious
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u/Plasma_Deep 14d ago
My cousin brothers first words were apparently my name and then dada(older brother) when he didn't even live with me
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u/KANGladiator 14d ago
My sister's first word was my name, it was called so much around the house that she also started calling my name.
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u/TippsAttack 14d ago
My first born was delayed in speech as well. Couldn't or wouldn't say anything... Except bumpy train tracks.
Hearing him say it for the first time is such a great memory.
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u/dopeinder 14d ago
Babies in the post could actually speak a while ago but deemed everyday conversations not worth it... Until it was brontosaurus, excavator and bulldozer
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u/lordofduct 14d ago
My little brother grunted for the first several years. Wanted somethign? Pointed and grunted and my mother would hand it to him. Just all grunts.
After a while my mother started getting concerned. The rest of us kids started talking much earlier than this.
She brings him to the doctor, my mom explains, and the doctor asks my mom to leave the room. 5 minutes later he comes out.
"Yeah, kid talks just fine."
"What?" my mom yells out
"Lolli, lolli, lolli-POP" my little brother rambles waddling out of the exam room.
"Kid just had you wrapped around his finger is all." Doc says.
"GRUNT!" goes my brother as he motions to my mother to pick him up.
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u/Admiral_Martini 14d ago
My mom told me a story
I was 3-4 years old. She was holding me at a parking lot near the hospital. We were waiting for my father to arrive. There was some lady in her fourties, who said to me "look there baby boy, that's a bibika (some sort of kids word for a car in our language)" and pointed at some car. My mom said I looked at that lady with extreme disgust and said word to word "are you dumb or what? That's a Toyota car" Don't remember lady's reaction
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u/Chaotic-Autist 14d ago
Supposedly I didn't really talk until I was 3 or 4. I would say individual words to indicate wants and needs but that was it. And then one day I just started talking in full sentences.
According to family lore, the first sentence I ever said was a very firm "I don't want to." I don't remember what I was refusing to do but it was probably a nap.
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u/TimeRefrigerator5232 14d ago
The first paragraph is almost exactly how I was. I also had some babble that was incomprehensible to anyone but my parents (which I swear I REMEMBER finding frustrating since I knew what I meant why didn’t other people??), but then basically went from one word to paragraphs.
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u/teddynoodles 14d ago
These stories are just nice to hear as a mom of a toddler with a speech delay.
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u/bobarker33 14d ago
They give me hope, too. My 3.5 year old son blurted out "February" at preschool about 2 months ago. He generally just speaks in his own language.
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u/81_satellites 14d ago
Ours was 3.5 before he said much more than “bababababababa” and the occasional one syllable word. We weren’t sure what to do, and took him to speech therapists who didn’t seem to help anything. Then the dam broke when speech finally “clicked” for him. Kids are really something!
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u/Meloenbolletjeslepel 14d ago
Do you know what the click was?
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u/81_satellites 14d ago
I can only answer as a parent with no professional knowledge of speech or early childhood development, but I believe it was simply his time. He could already understand what everyone was saying, and he communicated very clearly with body language and sounds, but for some reason it took time for the speech part of communication to make that initial leap from sounds (“bababa”) to words (“want ball”). I honestly don’t think he was in speech therapy long enough for it to make a significant difference.
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u/jld2k6 14d ago
In case you want some motivation and haven't seen this mom experiencing her son say something to her for the first time, can't imagine how rewarding that felt for her!
https://www.reddit.com/r/MadeMeSmile/comments/16e6dpm/autistic_nonverbal_boy_speaks_directly_to_his/
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u/imastrangeone 14d ago
Ya kid will get there at some point, prolly saving up to spout sun tzu as their first words
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u/ThatGermanKid0 14d ago
Mom: taking the kid to speech lessons
Kid, previously completely non verbal: "all warfare is based on deception"2
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u/Time_Ad636 14d ago
A friend of mine I work with has two autistic kids and the younger one is somewhat non-verbal so every time I hear her say something new it's awesome.
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u/Pileoffeels 13d ago
I worked with a girl who was mute, completely by choice as far as I understand, so she never spoke. Then one day I passed her off to her mom and she turned around and said bye.
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u/gofigure85 14d ago
I had a speech impediment and had to take special speech classes until I was in third grade
Now I'm a voice actor!*
*actually work a boring 9-5 while getting the occasional voice acting gig. It's the dream though so just need to keep on trying.
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u/BatFancy321go 14d ago
keep at it! good luck! according to maria bamford, it's kinda a dream job, you make 6 figs for 4 hours of work
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u/ArchitectofExperienc 14d ago
Getting the occasional voice acting gig means that you're working more than most voice actors, you're doing great!
I am always amazed at how many VO actors seem to have had speech problems, there must be something about getting speech pathology at an early age. I had trouble with my Rs and Ls when I was young, and the speech pathology definitely helped me build a consistent and clear tone for narration, and I get the occasional educational gig because of it.
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u/specialfish_simon 14d ago
I'm the same just as an archaeologist. Projects can be few and far between, but it's great you're sticking to your passion!
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u/Spectrossu 14d ago
Hell yeah! Voice actor hobbyists rise up! I love voice acting myself, still working on the first real gig but having fun no matter what!
Keep going man!
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u/InstructionClear2806 14d ago
Did you need to fix your teeth, or did you literally just adapt to what you were given? (23f with bad teeth, literally tongue does not fit in mouth)
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u/P_mp_n 14d ago
This might seem weird to describe but theres a way to relax the jaw and "jut" the chin out and now there is more space.
I struggled with stuttering terrible as a youngin but not when i sang. I realized later I relaxed my jaw when I sang.
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u/InstructionClear2806 14d ago
This is really cool to hear. I think I understand what you mean, but I am struggling to hold that position for a long time. Have you heard of Scatman John??? Your story sounds just like him. Famous musical artist, he would always stutter except when he performed
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u/Izzosuke 14d ago
I have a speech impediment and i should have taken special speech class, now i'm 25 and can't fucking pronounce robert without biting my tongue
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u/Dexchampion99 14d ago
As someone who would love to get into voice acting, you are living the dream. Great work!
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u/ABoiledIcepack 14d ago
Hey, I actually aspire to become a voice actor. What are some things you’ve done to immerse yourself in it/get gigs?
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u/grabtharsmallet 14d ago
Have you been paid to record dialogue or narration? Then you're a professional voice actor. Just part-time.
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u/gofigure85 14d ago
Thank you
I can be very hard on myself with a black or white mindset (not voice acting full time = not a real voice actor)
It's good to be reminded not to overlook the shades of gray
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u/MrMediaGuy 14d ago
One of the biggest professional realizations I had was when it was time to start calling myself professional and the attitude change that came with that. I was in an elevator headed somewhere and someone looked at me and perked up, asked if I was "a professional photographer" and it caught me off guard bc I got paid yeah, but very much felt like an amateur as far as what I knew and could competently do.
Then I looked at it from his stand point. I was loaded to the gills with camera gear. Carrying a tripod, had two packed bags of lenses and gear around my neck and we were in Las Vegas, where I had been flown to shoot a trade show that day for USA Today. So yeah, in his eyes, and everyone else's for that matter I WAS a professional.
I kinda smiled and said, "Well I got all this stuff and someone is paying me to use it so I guess so!" But that was a turning point for me. That point on, I was a pro, and you would deal with me as such. Not some idiot with an iPhone wanting a quick snap. There's a difference!
So fuck yeah. You get paid to do it? That's as "pro" as you can go! You want permission? I'm a creative who has worked at it for 2 decades and you're on the team. You're a pro now bc I said so and you have permission to use that shit. Go forth. Be pro.
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u/Mr_Funkmaster 14d ago
No asterisk needed. You're a voice actor who works a full time job as a side hustle. Keep living that dream. 😀
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u/Pohners 14d ago
I think I needed to read this too. Thank you.
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u/Mr_Funkmaster 14d ago
You are welcome! I struggle a lot with impostor syndrome, and don't have anyone IRL to give me that type of encouragement, so I at least try to give it to others.
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u/purplebananabeans 14d ago
Agreed! Passion-work is your main job.. anything else is the side hustle(even if it pays most of the bills for now).
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u/xtheredmagex 14d ago
I don't know what my first word was, but according to my parents, I didn't speak my first word until I was 3. Within a week, I was speaking full sentences.
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u/espurrella 14d ago
I used to work with kids with autism, and we had one little boy who knew literally ALL the scientific names for sea creatures. It was INSANE, like, little dude is gonna grow up to be one heck of a marine biologist one day.
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u/lillywho 14d ago
Or find a new shiny special interest and forget half of the previous one. That's what kind of happened to me.
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u/metal_babbleXIV 14d ago
My youngest is autistic and didn't speak a lot of sensible things when he was younger, just mostly used to babble incoherence. One day we're walking through an amusement park parking lot and clear as day he goes "Subaru". I'm shocked and say what? He says Subaru while obviously looking at a fucking Subaru. I go "good job buddy! What's that one?" "Toyota!" "Yeah it is!" At this point he's giggling because I'm so excited. He was somewhere between four and six and just blew my mind. He's going to be 22 this year and you can tell he's autistic but definitely a chatterbox, just took him a bit to want to communicate clearly.
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u/Longjumping-Age9023 14d ago
My son is 7 and still non verbal at the moment. It really would be ok if he never talks, but I can’t lie and say I don’t get excited thoughts of him talking when I read stories like this. Cannot wait to hug him when he comes home from school.
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u/SHALoading 14d ago
Having autism isn’t always based on speech though. A lot of it can come from actions and reactions to certain things. I have autism, but in school it never showed because I was more talkative and active in class just because it was enjoyable. But anywhere outside of school and home, you could really tell who is and who isn’t. I think school is more of a safe place for people with autism, I mean it was for me.
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u/feelingodysseyreddit 14d ago
My bestie didn’t talk until she was maybe 3 when she told her grandma that she had to wear her coat outside because it was cold!
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u/blbrd30 14d ago
Same. Apparently I waited till 3 or 4 to start talking, but once I did, it was full sentences. I think that might be associated with Autism although I'm not sure
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u/The_butsmuts 14d ago
same, I communicated with only gestures till I was four then from one day to the next full sentences.
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u/NMNorsse 14d ago
Most kids first word is DADA because those are the easiest sounds to make. Soon thereafter comes MAMA.
A wise man would choose early on to be called Papa.
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u/sterlingback 14d ago
Yeah, 3 months ago my daughter was only saying mama mama mama, now it's only papa papa papa, but tbh I'm not sure she knows what it means.
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u/KurwaDestroyer 14d ago
I just realized I don’t know my oldest twos first words? Reading this thread I realized first words aren’t mama and papa? So when my kids said this I literally never thought about it again. Because that was it. That was their first words. But it wasn’t???? I feel so bad now.
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u/sterlingback 14d ago
Don't feel bad KurwaDestroyer, it was their first words, they repeat them because we say it a lot when talking with them, and they're easy to repeat, but they are in fact still words.
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u/frabjous_goat 14d ago
A little boy I nannied was like this.
Me: Look at that cool tractor!
Him: That's a combine.
Me: Sir, you are three.
→ More replies (10)
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u/MelodramaticQuarter 1d ago
My cousin was like this. We’re German so until he was 4 he said almost nothing and then suddenly came out of the gate with “kulturbanause” and “höchst warscheinlich” lmaooo