DD leaned to commando crawl in the brace. It took her a while to get the knack of normal crawling and she walked just shy of 18 months. All up she was in a brace/plaster for the first 11 months of her life. But I tended to shy away from kids the same age as she was, it was just too hard seeing them develop. I couldn't even join my baby buddies group on here until afterwards.

As far as the link with crawling and speech goes, well DD could say well over 100 words before she turned 1 and now, just shy of 3 she can count to 60. Other than her hair, the way she speaks and the vocab she has is the most commented on thing by people around us. I honestly feel that being immobile for so long forced her to establish her other skills, and because I talked to her all the time, she is very clear in her communication. Try not to worry about that