Encouraging verbal communication

[mas36]

My ds is 3.6. He is lively, extremely active and very physically capable. He has always pushed the boundaries to get his own way. His speech is pretty good with broad vocabulary but its not always clear. He can be prone to aggressive outbursts of hitting and kicking and we have had bouts of this kind of behaviour directed against me and dh since he was 2. He has calmed a lot at home and now when he's angry at being told "no" he looks like he wants to lash out but can usually control this. We disipline using time out. Agression is now more of a problem with other children, particularly over sharing. If another child interferes in his games or takes a toy he seems to immediately resort to hitting. He doesn't cry easily and so never presents as the "victim" to other parents although I think that sometimes he is in trouble for hitting another child back. I am trying hard to encourage verbal communication of emotions and wonld appreciate any tips.

[mummyhill]

Have you tried using makaton with him? We found ds was like this and it stemmed from frustration at not being understood. We started teaching him basic signs and the tantrums have subsided a bit. Does he suffer from recurrent ear infections, or is he clumsy if so ask to be reffered for a hearing test, my ds has some hearing loss in his left ear which doesn't help. try this site for info on signing

[pagwatch]

mas36
DS lost all speech at 22 but it started to return at 4 years with lots of hard work.
We mostl;y ;labelled things for him. Tried NOT to ask questions as this can send frustration levels through the roof ( by the time we saw speech people he was a very angry and aggressive 3 year old.
I was told to try and talk to him in a fairly simple way using lots of encouragement and enthusiasm. So it would be " lets get your shoes, here are your shoes, lets put your shoes on, now you have your shoes on lets go out". You feel a bit of a twit initially but it made a huge difference.
You might find it useful to express his emotions for him a little as well as that too can be frustrating. I would say " you are cross arn't you. I know you wanted to go out but we can't and you are very cross. poor you " A lot of my DS's frustration was because he couldn't speak he thought we were ignoring his point of view if you see what i mean.
And without being to new age on you EFA's? fish oils/ omega oils can help with speech ( helped DS whose diagnosis was eventually verbal dispraxia. Youe health food shop could help if you are interested or you can get Eye-Q at Boots. Made a HUGE difference to my son