tell me about your late talker! - Page 3

[hibiscus mum]

DD had very few words at that age and had the "explosion" at around 27 months.  She never said "mama" but started calling me mommy when she was over 2 years old.  I only started to worry about it when she turned 2 and I realized she was a bit behind her peers.  I never sought any professional help on the matter, but I guess it can't hurt.

It doesn't seem to have affected her negatively in any way.  She was able to read at 3 years old and talks a blue streak now.

[k9sarchik]

My 3 year old son is a late talker.  He still does not speak in sentences, but I am not concerned because his words are coming more and more every day and he speaks in broken sentences.  I read the book The Einstein Syndrome by Thomas Sowell and he fits the profile of late talkers exactly.  He is very sharp with Music, Math, and Memory.  I will not be using a speech therapist with him, I see no need.

[Belia]

Haven't read the responses, but we're going through this right now.

DS only had about 16 words by the time he was 25-26 months.  I guess his first word was at about 21 months or so.  He seemed to understand everything, could follow directions, and babbled, but just didn't talk.

At 26 months we had his hearing tested, and he had lost about 30% of his hearing.  They were pretty confident that it was due to a build up of fluid, so at 26 months he had the surgery to put tubes in his ears.  We just had his follow up appt with the doc last week- before the surgery the volume of what he could hear was measured at a .3.  After the surgery it was a 3.3, so about a 12-fold increase.

AT the same time we had him evaluated for Early Intervention and he qualified, so he just started speech therapy.  Everyone's pretty confident that he'll catch up, but we have some work to do before then.

I would get his hearing tested by a pediatric audiologist and go from there.  

[JudiAU]

DS started talking at 17m. Absolutely nothing until then. Language explosion at around 19-20m. Learned every letter of the alphabet by sight, all colors, most animals the same month. Very verbal now. Almost too verbal.

I was fairly concerned about it and would have started speech therapy with an indepth hearing assessment at 18m. Not because I didn't think it could be within range but lack of speech is frequently associated with other issues and I would want another set of eyes involved.

My nephew did not receive speech therapy when he should have (my ex-SIL wouldn't hear of it even though my special ed teaching mom practically begged her) and it has cast a significant shadow over his education. He really never caught up.