Positive stores with speech delay - really stressed

So my eldest is 16 and didn’t speak at all until he was almost four. He just said nothing- he’d make noises and babble away but nothing discernible at all. Then language exploded from him out of nowhere, it was like he’d been storing it all up until he felt confident enough. He’s about to take his GCSEs and set to get straight 9s, is studying maths, further maths, economics and geography at A Level.

My youngest is 5 and also a Gestalt language processor. He’s also highly intelligent like my eldest- he’s been a fluent reader since 3, is amazing at maths and spelling etc. He has an impeccable memory and can order things like book series in order of publication. Seriously impressive. But yes, his speech is behind. He doesn’t reliably communicate with language but I will say he has hugely improved over the past year. There was a stage when we were worried he’d never speak but he’s getting there. We just get random sentences sometimes out of nowhere and it always takes us by surprise. The other day I asked him to do something and he said “do I have to?!” which made me burst out laughing.

Be patient. Most of them end up speaking eventually.

My younger son had moderate speech and language delay - a limited vocabulary at age three. This made nursery difficult for him and like the OP I was very stressed about it. We had NHS SLT (we were paying school fees and nursery fees, and couldn't stretch any further). His language was still delayed when he started prep school at 5+ and he had SEN provision for Year 1. During that year he rapidly learned to read, at which point I relaxed a bit as there was evidently no fundamental language issue. His speech retained a few quirks for a while - he would mix up male and female pronouns for example. He ended up doing lots of acting and debating at school (I note a PP's comment about being 'in role') and got excellent A Levels including French, and Latin AS. He recently graduated from Edinburgh with a First in History and is currently doing a Master's.
As a teen he went through a difficult time - he found it hard to form friendships - and he was given a diagnosis of Asperger's through CAMHS.

And they decide the rate for you. Feel free to DM if you have any questions!

We get the middle care rate. You should definitely apply. I applied with the help of my county’s money advice unit and it was a huge help. In terms of supporting documentation, I included the speech therapist’s assessment, a statement from DS’s preschool SENCO and our ASD assessment questionnaire.

DLA - when you apply you give as much evidence as possible about how they need more help than an average child their age. They decide your award.

Also in terms of potty training, mine was 3.5 when she finally cracked it (7 at night) .
You're doing great.

Hi op! Mum to a girl with autism who is now 17!

Started speech therapy age 3 as she was barely talking. Tbh it didn't do much, what did was time.
By age 4 she had caught up to her peers and hasn't shut up since 🤣

She's now almost an adult now, at college with a boyfriend and things are a lot easier. I still do a lot for her (self care wise) but other than that shes a typical teenager .

I remember crying myself to sleep some nights when she was 2/3 thinking she would never talk.

Handheld your LO will get there, don't spend years fretting like I did, just lots of talking, books etc .

My Little DSR (Dear Son Rhino for those on my other threads) is a GLP.

He learns in chunks so we get a batch of development, then nothing for a while.

Until quite recently he was still in nappies - trained for wee about a year ago, poos about 8 months ago, and now dry through the night.

No one can tell you - but if you look for my old thread ‘My son called me mummy’ under this username you might get an idea of my boy’s progression.

I didn’t know about BIBIC until that friend mentioned it. And I didn’t know about LAMDA until the twins started school. Obviously we can’t know about everything haha! We learn as we go along. I always thought - oh I need to do something to make his speech better and at school heard the acronym LAMDA.

Yes she started off saying just saying drink or eat and now has started adding the “I want” . Sounds like your DS is on the right track, our Dd’s progress has been slow but steady.

@chasingpirates, I’m following your thread with interest as my DS (3.5) sounds similar. It sounds like he has a lot of strengths and that’s great he’s using various scripts in context.

Have you applied for DLA to help with the private SALT costs? We were awarded DLA recently and it’s been a huge help.

We are in Berkshire so BIBIC was not on our doorstep, but I was prepared to travel if I had to (didn’t need to in the end). From a certain age they do a two day in-person assessment I think. (Not at the age of two. At two, in covid, it was several hours on zoom).

My son (who is 7, a twin) had some speech delay, he flaps when he’s excited and is not great with eye contact. Just after he turned two he started to talk more and more. Music, singing helps! I took him and his sister to Baby College and one day, just before he turned two, he started to try to copy the song from Baby College at home. Drummed the drum to copy the beat and tried to sing the words. You can’t shut him up now haha. I had a consult with BIBIC also who came highly recommended by a friend with a kid who has sensory processing difficulties - they provide great practical tips for various situations (we only had an assessment on Zoom - covid times - and they were not much worried about my son).

He just passed his LAMDA exam with distinction - I’m a little lost in their system, it’s either Public Speaking or Verse and Prose, and I think it was stage 3, whatever applies to this age, Year2. They needed to recite a poem and talk about a book. He will probably always have autistic traits, a little bit more than an average person, eye contact not great still and flapping, but I’m hopefully he’ll lead a happy and rewarding life.

i was just looking at old videos, I found one where, at 2.5 years, he’s trying to sing 5 Little Monkeys, with a monkey in his hand, it is still hard to understand, but possible. I always, for this reason, wanted him to do something like LAMDA to improve articulation.

So all in all, see if you can do more singing and maybe speak to someone like BIBIC?

My daughter is very nearly 4. Diagnosed autistic an a few weeks ago, which was not a surprise to us. She never developed language or gestures so didn’t regress, also diagnosed with global developmental delay.

Over the last few months her vocab has expanded tenfold, mostly single words but also some sentences “I want a drink”, I want to go to the garden”, “Help me please” we are over the moon, gestures have been slower, she claps, high fives, waves, pointing is seldom still.

She is now imaginatively playing, taking an interest in other children and family members, wants us to join in play with her.

She has never walked on tip toes or “flapped”but she does have a few sensory issues, doesn’t like getting wet unexpectedly or things on her hands and can meltdown in busy environments but its rare.

I totally understand your worry, it’s so hard not knowing whats going to happen or how far they will progress, I find that part the most frustrating.

Yeah, he has a couple of months of private speech therapy as I was getting nothing from the NHS. The therapy was more about me learning strategies to use with him. The referral to SLT was over 3 years ago and it was only a couple of weeks ago the NHS actually decided to provide some support. They are using the Hanen programme, we're waiting on allocation of a speech and language assistant to come and do some work with us. They're also offering training to his school staff.

DS did not speak at all until he was 4
I managed to get him statemented at pre school and he had SALT input until age 12/13 due to stuttering and language delay
He is now 30+ diagnosed with ADHD and a generally well rounded adult who holds down a high pressured job - he’s still very quiet!