Parents of late-talkers - let's talk! - Page 2

[~cassie]

My son has been n speech for nearly 4 years and he is only 4 and a few months :)

-The best thing you can really do is to just narrate everything you do.  "we are putting your shoes on.  We are now putting your jacket on.  Now let's open the door" etc.  It really becomes second nature and I did it with my youngest unconsciously and that really helped him advance in language.  Lots of books-you don't necessarily have to read the book-but look at it and point out what is happening on the page.  Let him find the dog or the bird or whatever it is.  This really helped my son wth comprehension and building vocabulary. 

I encouraged talking as much as possible.  At first he wanted to sign for everything and I tried 3x at each instance to get him to verbalize a response before I would give him something.  So if he came to me and signed "milk" then I would say to him "milk" and really enunciate it.  And I would do that 3x in hopes to get him to say it.  He would still get it if he didn't verbalize and I would help him expand his sentences as he got each word.  I usually had him say the main word "milk" then we progressed to "want milk" for a week or 2 and then "I want milk" or "want milk me"(how his was) until he really got it. 

But really.  All the tricks in the book-narrating my life/his life is what worked.  My son is 4 yrs old and is still about 6-9 months delayed.  He is deaf but his speech is so good for the amount of time he has been hearing.  You can't force your child to talk and it can easily become a power struggle.  Language may not come easy to him or there may be another reason that he is having trouble or most likely he will be just fine.  But don't push it.  Just expose him to language as often as you can and it will come.

[liberal_chick]

I'm another with a pretty speech delayed kiddo. My ds is just over 2.5 and says fewer than 20 words. We started speech therapy a few weeks ago and he is still being evaluated to try to identify the problem, if there is one. If you'd have asked me a month ago, I would have sworn my ds was somewhere on the spectrum. But once we went to the ped for a speech referral she screened him for autism and said she didn't think that was the culprit. The speech therapist did an even more in depth screening and said the same thing. Ds is a wonderful communicator, but his expressive language is so poor (more than 2 standard deviations, said the therapist) that we were told on his first visit that he absolutely would qualify for therapy and insurance would foot the bill.

[Peony]

OP, maybe a different SLP? I really liked our EI one, and so did DS1. We saw her for 10 months, he made some progress but it certainly wasn't amazing and then we had to go to private therapy. OMG. The new SLP had all sorts of tricks up her sleeve and his progress with her has been amazing. We also recently enrolled him in a local speech playgroup with other speech delayed children run by a SLP for 1-2 mornings a week and he loves it. 

[tillymonster]

I am glad I found this thread! Mine is 23mo and she has about 5-10 vocal words and 10-30 ASL signs plus more I know I am forgetting! She's babbling like CRAZY so I know more language is coming. She seems to get frustrated and whiney prettyoften these days-- I just don't understand her at all sometimes!

I am constantly annoyed with family/friends telling me she may be autistic because she's SUPER smart, shy and basically knows what she wants, doesn't let people hold her or touch her. Doesn't speak or sign on command.

I really don't feel like I need to get her evaluated but reading about this inner ear fluid is making me wonder. Should I ask her doc about it? They have never said anything about things to check on if her speech is delayed because I never mentioned it being an issue. Again glad I read this...

[mamandedeux]

Originally Posted by Peony 

OP, maybe a different SLP? I really liked our EI one, and so did DS1. We saw her for 10 months, he made some progress but it certainly wasn't amazing and then we had to go to private therapy. OMG. The new SLP had all sorts of tricks up her sleeve and his progress with her has been amazing. We also recently enrolled him in a local speech playgroup with other speech delayed children run by a SLP for 1-2 mornings a week and he loves it. 

I would love a speech playgroup. I'll ask about that.

I've been thinking about switching to a different SLP. I probably should just to see whether it's just me, or if she really isn't doing it for us. I can't understand why 30 mins. of guided play counts as speech therapy, when I do the EXACT same thing with him for hours every week. For example, she had him pull out different coloured poker chips from a bag and stack them on the matching colour shape on the table. He was supposed to say ''more'' before she allowed him to take one from the bag, and then attempt to say the colour after she said it. He would kinda oblige her (say ''mmmmmo'' then wait for her to open the bag), but that's it. Half an hour, $50 later, and no progre ss. I do the exact same thing at home with similar tools. Why am I paying for this? She doesn't offer any info on how this is supposed to be helping either.

OK, rant over.

I made a list of all his new words. He can now say (or approximate) 50 words. The problem, and why I remain concerned, is that while I can get him to tell me what the names for different objects are, he rarely does so without prompting. For example, he can say water, but if he wants to drink he'll stand in front of the sink screaming mommy, then point at the tap, and start signing water, cup, and do the drinking gesture. Why not just say ''water''? He said a word (mommy), pointed numerous times (sink, me, himself), signed 3 different signs, and even acted it out. If I tell him to say water, he'll look at me and say water. But if I ask him right away what he wants, same theatrics. This happens with just about everything (wanting to go out, looking for a toy...).

Also, although he can clearly say car, train, and name a whole bunch of animals, he prefers to use the sounds instead (broummm, choo-choo, meow, woof...). My DS1 also did this for a long time, despite being very verbal at a young age, so I don't know...

He also just this week started combining some words (he says ''snow brrrr'' - meaning cold snow, and ''mommy car'', ''daddy car'' pointing at our respective cars.) I guess that's good progress.

Thanks for being there.

[Peony]

Definitely seek out other SLPS then. Our EI one is back as of today (she was severely injured and unable to work for months) and when I was sitting here watching the session, I was reminded again that it isn't anything that I don't do with him already. Just like you were describing, we name toys, talk very simply, slowly, try to get him to repeat, and that is exactly what she does. Our private SLP has a slightly different approach, and while it is similar, it just works so much better for him. She has phrase cards/pictures that she uses often and is quite strict about how he can and can not play with her. He is probably up to 50 words now with her and I would say he was at 20 3 months ago with the other one. I would never play with him they way that she does because it is quite calculated, but he is responding. Just a different approach can make a difference. 

[mamandedeux]

A few updates:

We saw the ENT last month. His opinion is that his ears are super gunked up with fluid and thickened wax. We agreed to have tubes put in. Surgery should be in Feb. or March. The ENT also said I was probably wasting my money on speech therapy, and that I should just give it another 3 months and see after the tubes. Which led me to contact our local EI people and ask for a speech assessment. I figured if we qualified for services, then perhaps I wouldn't be wasting my money since, well... it's free.

We met with the speech pathologist and she did a very thorough assessment (almost 2 hours, at least an hour one-on-one with DS) and her conclusion is that he is NOT really speech delayed. She agrees that he does have some pronunciation difficulties, but based on her findings, he is somewhere between the 24-30 month milestone scale (DS is 25 months). However, I think that if she would have met him last month, her findings would have been totally different. His vocabulary has exploded in the last few weeks, and he now probably has a few hundred words (he had about 50 at the end of Nov.), and he's combining 2-3 words all the time. He's very hard to understand, though, but I guess that's normal since he literally had no words until a few months ago.

We're happy!

[Spring Lily]

Mamandedeux, that is great news. I just popped into this thread because two of my kids were late talkers, and my DS sounded so much like yours. He only had maybe a dozen words at 25 months, wasn't putting words together, and we did the speech evalutation through EI. He had a 6 month delay (not enough to get services in our area). I was so upset at the time. The speech therapist was impressed with his comprehension though and said that is a really good sign.

About 2 weeks later he suddenly started saying more words, and by 26 months he had about 60 words and was using 3 word sentences! It was quite a shock how fast it happened. A year later, he's totally on track and tells long, long stories all the time, is able to fully express himself with peers and adults, it's really amazing. I was so worried about him going to preschool if he couldn't express himself or other adults couldn't understand him, but that's not the case at all. We do try to work on clarity with him, but there are plenty of other kids in his class I can't understand at all, so I'm not too worried. Of course, my DS didn't have the ear issues you're dealing with, so it's different, but I thought you might like to hear a positive story from the other side. I bet after the tubes you are going to see some real progress with him.

[SeattleRain]

My son is 18 months and we've been in EI for speech delay for 6 months now. He has 1 sign (all done) and sometimes will say "mo" if he wants more. That's it. Oh, and sometimes he'll say "vroom" if I coach him while he's playing with trucks and cars. I'm not super pleased with the progress he's making, I had expected that he would have more language by now. When we went for our 18 month visit, it was obvious that she felt like that as well and seemed to be concern. His ears are fine, we had a hearing test done at the deafness center. We've had two speech therapists come and look at him, one works with him once a week, and a whole team of therapists to come and do a total eval and all of them essentially ruled out autism because of how social and interactive he is with others. I get a sense that's not really his problem either. I can't pinpoint it, but I still feel like there might be something going on with his hearing or his ears. Sometimes I feel like he doesn't hear me and doesn't seem to know what I'm saying, even if it's a song I've sung a million times or a phrase I say all the time. He doesn't seem to have much reference to the phrase "mama" or "daddy" which is really frustrating. Actually, that might not be totally true because sometimes when he's frustrated he'll say "mamamama" which very well could be his way of "alerting" me to something being amiss. But if he's in his crib and wakes up and wants me to come get him, he doesn't yell for me.

His receptive language has definitely improved since we started EI, though its hard to say if its the EI or just time. His spoken language has not improved really at all. I'm starting to wonder whether I should get him re-evaluated, both his speech and his hearing just to get a second opinion. Do you think this is a good idea?

[mamandedeux]

Originally Posted by SeattleRain 

My son is 18 months and we've been in EI for speech delay for 6 months now. He has 1 sign (all done) and sometimes will say "mo" if he wants more. That's it.

That's more than what DS2 had at 18 months. I think he sometimes said mama, but I'm not sure he meant it in context. Words began appearing at 20 months (I think the SLP counted 3 words as real words when he was assessed at 20 months: mama, dada and there). By 22 months he had 15 or so, and then really started gaining 1-2 words a week. The last few weeks, he's had 2-3 new words A DAY!!!!!!!!

It's clear that he doesn't acquire speech in a typical manner, though, so who knows how quickly he'll catch up. I'm surrounded by 2 year olds all day long, and it's very obvious that DS2 is not talking as much as they are. My DS1 had 4-word sentences at 18 months, so I know I shouldn't compare, but still.

I'm really of two minds: although it may be best to wait and see and really just appreciate the fact that kids develop at different rates, what if there is an underlying cause that you (as the parent) are missing? One month ago, I was so sure that my DS2 would never talk because he didn't, but now that he'll actually say``oh, hi mommy'' when I walk into a room makes me think that we'll get there.

[beebalmmama]

We're currently in the process of trying to get ds (25 months) evaluated with EI. Hopefully we'll have some sort of meeting this week. I was more of the 'don't worry and wait approach', but I don't want to wait any longer considering his slow progress. Also we had the experience with our older ds (now 6yrs) that getting speech help once in public school was much more difficult (funding). His teacher couldn't understand him in kindergarten but he wasn't "bad enough" to receive help. So I want to make sure we see if we can get help for ds 2 while he still qualifies for EI.

His language is really taking off in the last few weeks, however most words are still only the first two sounds "mo", do (dog), doe (door), "wa" (water). He has around 10 words and 20-25 signs. I think he's coming along with more and babbles a lot more, which he never to rarely did before 18 months. His receptive has always been very good, so I have no concerns there. He just often still grunts with inflections in his voice, instead of trying to voice words.

We do a lot of repeating words and sounds and we do a lot of letter sounds, kind of like you would with phonics for reading. He's always loved letters and so we figured at least we can encourage him to vocalize the sounds he needs and he will repeat letter sounds much more often than words. He will actually come get us to write down letters and he tells us the sound and we write the letter down. He loves it!  Dh and I have joked that he'll be reading before he speaks! :) 

[anjsmama]

To you mamas in the midst of it: My DS is now 3.5 y/o. He didn't babble beyond "baba" until 18 months. At this time last year (2.5 y/o) when my DD was born, my DS said less than 20 words. Mom, dad, water, ball, please, thank you, night night, no... It was very, very limited. But he was not on the spectrum & his receptive language skills were evaluated at 40 months (when he was 28 months) and that turned out to be all that mattered. When he was 30 months (last February), he woke up one day speaking in sentences. Literally.

At 3.5 y/o, he has an immense vocabulary, an insane ability to understand and retain things and talk about them later, and he NEVER ever ever ever shuts up. I mean I adore him, but he never stops talking. His SLP and many others around MDC recommended the narrative style version of life - "Mama changing your diaper. Now you're fresh and clean. Are you comfy now?" which I did pretty much from the time he was a year on... and while it worked (was that what did it?) - it also came back to bite me in a rather obnoxious way! "Mom, let's put  on our coats. Okay - can you open the door now so we can go outside? Then we'll go downstairs and get in the van so we can drive to the park. Let's go to the blue park. We'll drive to the blue park, but not til you buckle me in." Yikes! Not saying you shouldn't do it, just a fair warning. 

[wishin'&hopin']

Thanks Anjsmama, I'm to the point where I want to cry every time someone else decides to list to me all the words their child is saying.  This morning a parent of a 14 month old (my DS is 21 months) did this and I wanted to weep.  DS says, "blue" (boo); "stars" (sta); "mama"; "mommom"; "water" (wawawa); and makes many animal noises.  But, that's it...apart from the constant singing to himself with vowel sounds and lispy sounding Ls. 

[mamandedeux]

Originally Posted by wishin'&hopin' 

Thanks Anjsmama, I'm to the point where I want to cry every time someone else decides to list to me all the words their child is saying.  This morning a parent of a 14 month old (my DS is 21 months) did this and I wanted to weep.  DS says, "blue" (boo); "stars" (sta); "mama"; "mommom"; "water" (wawawa); and makes many animal noises.  But, that's it...apart from the constant singing to himself with vowel sounds and lispy sounding Ls. 

What is it with people? A family friend that we hadn't seen in a long time mentioned last weekend that we really should have someone look at DS2 (she doesn't know he's already in ST) because her DS was talking wayyyyy more (her DS is 15 months!!!!!! - ouch!). She told us all the words he could say and then tried to get our DS to repeat them. She actually laughed when (of course) he was unable to, saying it was ''cute'' that he was at least trying.

Wishin', if both our DSs got together, we would have a clear ''star' since my DS says ''ar'' for star. Hang in there!

[fizgig]

Posting an update as well since I didn't know what was up with DS the first time I posted here.  We have since seen a developmental ped and she diagnosed our son with Mixed Expressive Receptive Language Disorder which has been a relief since it helps us understand what is up.  This dx is basically a fancy word for a late talker and many kids with this just catch up (though some don't and continue to have language processing issues).  DS is almost 3 now and his language is taking off in just the last month.  We began signing with him more consistently and it was like magic.  I don't know why but him starting to sign more also encouraged more spoken vocab.  I'd say we are up to 50 words now and his receptive is also booming.

My advice at this point to other mom's of late talkers is to get them checked BUT make sure you go to an expert that you trust.  When DS was 2.5 and his receptive language was really lagging he was very social in general but also didn't respond well to his name, didn't make good eye contact with strangers, etc.  We went to an SLP who immediately decided he was autistic and pushed for intensive intervention (I mean 30-40 hours a week!).  It didn't seem right to me and so I sought out an expert and she confirmed my suspicions that his red flags were all tied to language issues (and are all basically gone at this point).  Since then his dx has been confirmed by a dev psychologist as well as a number of SLPs.  Only reason I share is that getting the RIGHT help does matter.  An accurate dx is really important when they get closer to 2.5 or 3 I think.  Though basic language stuff (recasting, narrating their actions, talking to them at their level, focusing on give and take interaction) can't ever hurt in my opinion.

Things with our DS are going really well now so don't worry too much about your little ones and make sure you enjoy their toddler-hood!