Did your child start talking 'late'?? - Page 4

[Jennifer Z]

Leftfield, thank you. You articulated our situation exactly. I know people have great experiences with speech therapy, but it would have been a disaster for us too. I wish we lived close by to eachother...I bet our son's would get along well....just give them a bunch of building supplies. :LOL

[thoesly]

Originally Posted by Jennifer Z

I guess this thread really demonstrates how difficult it is for people just to take my word for it that I know my son is fine for this particular issue.

I take your word for it. Completely. You are the mama and he is your son.

What bothers me about these types of threads is that all of the talk about "overdiagnosing" and parents running to therapies implies that *their* word shouldn't be taken. It says that these nameless people are too gullible to question doctors or that they are too driven to see their child succeed to respect the child's development. By claiming the problem is exaggerated, a problem is created for those who *do* face the problem. When I tell someone new that my son has autism, they say something along the lines of, "Oh, well, that's the latest thing, isn't it?" They don't see or care about the problems. They just think I'm jumping on some perverse bandwagon. It gives them permission to discount the problems.

And regarding your lack of help at the Special Needs forum -- again, I repeat, many of us there know the dangers of *not* getting help because we are living with children who *do* have issues. And in many cases, lack of speech was either the tip of a larger problem, or it was a problem that continued to get worse rather than better. That is our experience, so that is the perspective we can give you. We can't give you insight we don't have. And if you have felt pressured there about getting an evaluation, it may be because our experience also includes acquaintances who didn't get help when they should have, and now they live and cry over that guilt. Again, I'm not doubting you, but if you don't want to hear special needs input, then that isn't the place to ask. With my kids, sometimes discipline issues *are* special needs issues, and sometimes they are not -- when I don't want special needs feedback, I don't ask on the Special Needs forum.

Once again, I'm not really trying to convince anyone of anything. But the dismissive statements about developmental issues, specialists who work with special needs ("ch-cha-ching"? or was that another thread?), and parents who are "too eager" to head for therapy seem to be much more rampant lately. Or maybe not. Maybe it's just time for me to hide out in the Special Needs forum again.

[bobica]

[QUOTE=TiredX2]Are you sure this is average. Recently I read the "50 words at age 2" not as average, but if the child had not attained that they needed to be evaluated.

This chart cites 5-20 words at 18 months and 150-300 words at 2 years:
http://www.childdevelopmentinfo.com/...elopment.shtmlQUOTE]


yep, i'm sure. i checked that site & it just says "vocabulary of 150-300 words" but doesn't specify receptive vs. expressive vocabulary which is a major point. That's how many words the average 2 year old understands, but not speaks. Typically, receptive/understanding language is larger than expressive/spoken.

Here are some links:

http://www.comeunity.com/disability/...uidelines.html

http://www.kidsource.com/kidsource/c...art/page1.html

http://www.comeunity.com/disability/...ilestones.html

[bobica]

Originally Posted by benjalo

I'm not sure what the risks of unnecessary speech therapy would be. I guess I just don't see the point of it with an under-2 kid, since SO many toddlers talk around 2 and "catch up" with their peers easily. That's just not a problem to be treated. I'm not even convinced it's a problem if the child's frustrated. If he were frustrated because he couldn't crawl by 9 months, would we seek therapy for that? Obviously, he'll learn soon enough and we parent him through the frustration.

Under 2, speech therapy is typically provided to children with diagnosed conditions, feeding difficulties, etc. It is not the "norm" to have a child under 2 evaluated & given treatment for language development concerns on their own, KWIM?

Most DO catch up at some point, if that's the only "issue". I understand parenting through the frustration but there's a big difference between 9 months & a 2 year old being frustrated b/c they can't communicate as effectively as they want to.