Speech delays

I notice quite a few posts on parenting subs where parents are worrying along the lines of their 8-month-old not quoting Shakespeare yet.

Then you see replies about kids that don't speak until they're 3 and then wouldn't shut up. And late developers ending up expert linguists later in life.

My impression - admittedly, based purely on anecdotes - is that the range of what's normal for language development is far wider than we're led to believe by various sources.

It seems speech therapy is pushed quite heavily in the US. Here in the UK it's pretty much impossible to get a referral until the kid is 2 - 2.5. I do wonder how useful speech therapy is for the majority. I suspect many success stories are actually examples of the kid's natural language development coinciding with the therapy.