Ms. Rachel broke her silence after her 13-month-old daughter’s impressive speech skills caused backlash among her followers, revealing that her son was slower to master his speech.
“My son had a severe speech delay and he’s extremely bright and wonderful — neither one is smarter!” the YouTube personality, whose real name is Rachel Griffin Accurso, wrote in the edited caption of one of her March TikTok videos.
Ms. Rachel, 43, shared that her son, Thomas, 7, “didn’t really talk” until he was 3 years old. Her daughter, Susie, meanwhile, has a large vocabulary, which the social media star showed off in the clip.
“I did the same stuff with him (actually more because I didn’t have two kids.) We got him speech therapy/early intervention starting at 15 months,” Ms. Rachel explained, advising her followers to “get help — sooner the better” if their child has been slow to pick up words.
She added that the way Thomas learns compared to his younger sister Susie’s speed “shows that kids are different and you shouldn’t feel bad!”
Ms. Rachel concluded, “I thought everyone knew about my sweet boy struggling with speech. Love! #msrachel #firstwords #babies #12months #mama.”
Ms. Rachel’s amended post — which she also shared as a comment on Monday, March 16 — came days after she shared a video of “some of Susie’s words at 12 months” on Thursday, March 12. (The original caption was, “Talking with Susie!”)
In the video, Susie is sitting on her mom’s lap as they go through different words she knows how to say, including “hi,” “bye,” “mama,” “dada,” “uh oh,” “yay” and even “baba”, which is a nickname for her older brother.
In the clip, Susie was all smiles, as was Ms. Rachel, but not everyone was a fan of how advanced her 13-month-old appeared to be. (Susie celebrated her first birthday on February 10.)
“Here I am begging just to get one word at 20 months old. In speech therapy. It’s a slow process. I feel like I failed him somehow,” one parent wrote in the comments section the same day it was posted.
Another user lamented, “I talk and sing to my 13-month-old every day but they can’t say any words. This is so cute but it’s hard not to feel sad and compare.”
“Well this made me feel like s*** 😳,” a third person wrote, while another joked that Susie has “the cheat codes to language development.”
Once Ms. Rachel — a former public school teacher who now helps kids with development via YouTube videos — posted her update about her son’s delayed speech journey, she received a few more positive comments.
“Thank you for this 💜 My son (just over 2 years old) also has a speech delay, and I am really trying hard to work with my now 7 month old,” one parent replied in the comments section. “It’s hard to not lose the faith, but hearing this story makes me remember sometimes it really just does take some littles a bit longer to catch on!”
A separate user thanked Ms. Rachel for being “such an amazing human being” and a “huge help to parents and kids.”
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