Hi Niki --

First off -- don't freak out.  Take a breathe and deal with one thing at a time.

And don;t compare chidren -- every mom who oever have more than one kid will tell you that.  And talking is especially kid-specific -- no two kids are ever alike on that one.

We have a bundle of info on Parenthood about speech development -- what to look for, what's a problem and what's not.  You might want to just browse throught it -- if nothing else it may helo you become more comforatble when speaking with your doctor and other professionals.  You can find it all listed here here.

It sounds to me like your pediatrician just wants to rule out a possible hearing problem.  I wouldn't worry too much about that -- it's standard procedure.  And he/she will just try  to cover all the bases -- I agree with debmom6 that you should definitely try to see someone who specializes in kids and hearing and who see lots of kids (may not necessarily be a doctor, the speech audioologists who do the hearing tests, because they see so many kids) can be very good too.) Plus if there turns out to be even a little hearing loss, it's best to know as soon as possible.

About the recommendation for speech therapy -- also quite common to do early intervention when toddler is running a little behind on certain sounds and is difficult to understand.  Kids do really well with it and seem to love the addditional attention.  (A good friend's little girl had it for several month and is now is kindergarten and you would never know she had any speech issues at all).

Let us know how things develop...