Super stroppy 4 yo with language disorder

[FoxPass]

Hello all, please help me, it's that time on a Sunday night where I can hardly face the thought of the week ahead!

Background: DS2 has just turned 4. Has recently been diagnosed with an expressive language disorder which he is getting excellent support with from a SALT.

He is a super high strung, intense, sensitive boy. The slightest thing sets him off; being told no, a change in activities, being hungry/tired/bored, I feel like I am always on eggshells wondering what he's going to kick off over next. I am currently reading this book about spirited children and it has been so helpful, but I think the main problem is frustration as he cannot always express himself, although this is slowly improving.

What can I do to help him with the frustration? It is getting so bad, he shouts at me and DH all the time, screams, screeches, hits and blows rasperries right in our face when he is really upset. I am getting so stressed with it, I cringe interacting with him in case he kicks off. I have to say he is really only like this with me and DH, nursery and SALT don't have any problems like this from him

He gets on great most of the time with DS1 who is nearly 7 and very good with him, but when they play he is inclined to get overstimulated quickly and it degenerates into tantrums and arguments!

Has anyone experienced anything like this? Time outs and removing treats/toys just do not work - he is the most stubborn person I have ever met, he just will not back down. Distraction is more successful but if he is thoroughly upset (which happens quickly) it doesn't work. I spoke to my HV but of course he was an angel in front of her and she just gave me a booklet on tantrums.

If you can offer any advice I would be so grateful. I am a SAHM/student so it is usually me on the receiving end and I recently I feel like I am going to have a nervous breakdown with it :(

[FoxPass]

Forgot to add - he can be a complete darling when he wants to be, cuddly, affectionate and funny, but just now we don't see as much of that :(

[Carrie5608]

Foxpass really sorry to hear you are having this problem. Ds had a severe receptive language problem and had similar behavoiur problems. It does improve rapidly with SALT.

There are a couple of things we did. Firstly try and anticipate when he needs some down time so for example it sounds like he is really holding it in at nursery and releasing it at home. you could give him a snack and quiet play when he comes in and no language demands for half an hour. Be careful not to ask him anything or tell him to do anything in this time.

Secondly use pictures for things, so in school they might have a visual timetable with pictures of what's happening in what order at home you can make your own. eg. picture of dinner, then TV and then bath.

Also have some pictures he can use when he is tired eg. drink, snack , bed etc

Try an anticipate where there will be big language demands and build in downtime after eg. after a party, no questions just a cuddle and story.

Other things we used sand timers for how long things would last and also three stickers in the morning he would loose one each time he did something and the if he lost all three there would be a consequence. However recognising when he was over whelmed and heading it of worked better. School tired him out much more so than any of our other Dc due to effort and concentration needed.

He is seven now and still has a one to one TA but is past the major behavoiur problems.

[bigfam]

You've just described my soon to the letter (except he's 5) and he's as bad at school as he is at home. I can't offer advice just my sympathy

[StupidFlanders]

I have one the same (turning 4). Carrie had some good ideas- I'll try the photos I think (no verbal demands won't work in our large family). He's also more challenging with us and I'm relived when others witness it! I think he holds it in outside home as the meltdowns can start in the car.

We're about to spend some big money on intensive therapy.

[FoxPass]

Thanks for your responses, Carrie your suggestions are really helpful, I hadn't thought of using pictures before as he does have some language, but it would help I think when he is overstimulated. I think he would respond well to the stickers too so we are going to try that.

(un-mumsnetty) bigfam. It is so tough sometimes isn't it.

What kind of therapy are you doing, StupidFlanders? I am taking DS2 for craniosacral therapy in a couple of weeks, apparently it can really help children who are intense/emotional, and can also aid speech development.

[StupidFlanders]

He'll be trying intensive daily therapy for awhile but I'm in Australia. There's also a clinic that specialises is apraxia near me .

We tried photos last night and he enjoyed looking at them! Thanks Carrie.

[Carrie5608]

We also did "The listening program" by ABT it worked fantastically for us but it doesn't work for everyone. Ask your speech therapist about it.

[gourd]

This is normal in the child with speech delay or speech disorder. My DD has phonological delay and did have expressive language delay as well although she has now “caught up” with and overtaken her peers in that area. Her vocabularly is massive for her age. The delay effected her behaviour at the time. She particularly hated crowds, playgroups etc as she could not talk to other kids or adults whenthey spoke to her, and also ound the loud background noise very distressing, as she couldn’t hear clearly what was being said well enoguh to repeat or “pick up” any of the words herself. He behaviour gradually improved the more able she was to communicate. My little neice had some speech delay due to glue ear and resulting deafness and this massively effected her bahaviour to the extent we were really worried something was seriously wrong with her (she would bang her own head hard againt the wall etc which was very distressing for her and the family). She is a completely different child now that she can hear and communicate properly with others!

It does take time (about a year in our case) for speech therapy to help enough for this to happen, but there are things you can do to make it easier for him to communicate in the meantime. E.g. A picture chart of morning routine and bedtime routine may help take away some of the stress involved for the child in having to work out what to do each morning and in trying to remember your instructions. It can make it fun to follow the pictures in the right order. You can get him involved in making it by getting him look at each picture, then cut out and stick the pictures on - in the order that you would expect him to do those tasks... (you just need to find some pictures of a child getting out of bed, eating breakfast, washing face, getting dressed, brushing teeth etc or use some photos of him doing those things)

Have you seen this article?
www.afasiccymru.org.uk/download/training/AfasicCymruConf-Sasha.pdf

It is true that if your child can’t ask for help or can't ask for clarification on how he should do something or for you to repeat the instructions ( i.e. you might ask him to get dressed, but he may not be able to ask for help when he needs it) then he is likely to get upset or angry.

Click on information for parents and carers. Read as much as you can to help yourself understand and empathise with your child as well as to find practical solutions.
www.talkingpoint.org.uk/
www.afasic.org.uk/

[gourd]

By the way, even now at 4 DD is still not always able to express her feelings, not anything to do with her previous speech delay but just because she is only 4. A few weeks ago we discovered that the true cause of her not wanting to go to nursery and ending u being collected early was the noise level (she had perforated ear drum). So I told her to tell the teacher, “It’s too loud, can I have some quiet time please?” This helped her massively as she was able to simply repeat this when she needed some quiet time and it stopped the 2 hours of tears/us having to leave work to collect her from nursery because her “ear hurts” – it was actually over sensitivity to noise whilst the drum was healing rather than pain, as she wasn't complaining of any pain at all at home.

As soon as they are able to repeat 3-4 or more words correctly you can give you child stock phrases (if necessary miss out words su7ck as the, a, please and other small non-essential words) to use in situations or when they fell ill/upset/angry etc which can help them to express themselves. I don't know whether you are at a point you could do this with your child yet – but there are other ways to do it too, with actions/signs or pictures.

[Thumbwitch]

This is anecdotal and may not work for your child but I'll offer it up anyway.
I have a friend whose Ds has verbal apraxia, and when he was 3-4 he had terrible behavioural issues and almost no speech. They thought it was just about frustration too.

But when we were talking, she mentioned some of the foods he liked to eat (he also has food allergies, proper ones) and it triggered a memory for me - so I suggested she look at removing high salicylate foods from his diet to see if it helped at all.

The results for him were amazing - within a day he was much calmer, and within 48h the difference was almost polar - since then she has kept him on low salicylate foods whenever possible (you can look up the lists of these on the internet) and he has become the sweetest child! He has since had speech therapy and is doing really well - he has global muscle weakness/dyspraxia as well as the verbal apraxia, but he can speak a lot better now (he's now 7) and is doing really well at school, although his writing is under-level, because of the dyspraxia.

Of course it might not work for your DS but it might be worth a try?

[gourd]

A major breakthrough for us in the behaviour at home was once DD was able to ask for help and to communicate her basic needs. We started off by saying "Help" every time we helped her, then once she started saying that, it was "Help me", then when she could say those 2 words, "Help me, Mummy".etc. Eventually she was able to say “Can you help me Mummy”? but it took a long time to get to that point. The word "Please" can only come after they can say the rest, but explaining this to other people was hard as they expected a 3 year old to ask “nicely” for things, and didn’t understand that she could only say 2 or 3 words in a row, so the word "please" was not a useful word for her! The way she would ask for a drink was “Drink”, then “Want drink”, or later, “I want drink” as that was the absolute limit of her speech till she was about 3.
Her behaviour improved as soon as she was able to communicate her basic needs to us but she still couldn't communicate well with other children or adults who didn’t know her, so it wasn't until she could speak in phrases of 5 or more words and was able to play with her peers and make friends (older kids will compensate for lack of speech in a younger child and will play well with them, but it’s not a peer-peer relationship) that she became a much happier child. I think communication problems are the main cause of your child’s anger and distress. I suspect he is desperate to communicate his needs and also to socialise with others (kids or adults), Children of 3 and 4 upwards really need to form friendships with their peers and that is very hard to do if they can’t communicate at the same level. Hopefully the SALT can give him the tools he needs to do that. Good luck with your journey.