3 1/2 years speech delayed son/ few concerns

[Noid2016]

Good evening all. I have been reading posts for a while now on the speech delay topic. I have become very concerned recently. My son was developing fine and progressing in speech over the summer. He was able to use many single words and had started to repeat and combine 2 words phrases. He used to have plenty of echolalia but stopped it completely 7 months ago. He started special ed at a developmental center a month ago. I see regression in speech and emerging of echolalia. He is not speaking as much and whenever I ask him to repeat 3-4 word phrases when requesting an item his words are not coming clear. Also, if I ask him to repeat three word phrases he adds an additional word making it four, but all of the words loose clarity. Please let me know if any of you have any experience with this. I’m getting very concerned.

How is he socially and imaginatively? Does he play pretending games etc?

Does he ask for what he wants? For example, if he's thirsty, does he ask for a drink?

Thank you for your reply. Socially he is ok, goes with everyone that wants to hold him, plays alongside kids but not together, is not bothered by kids. He does pretend play with animals by making them hop or walk, uses command as phone, feeds animals when he is eating himself sometimes( not very abundant with pretend play but he does it). He is requesting for things for at least 4 months now with single words and now had just started to use item plus please, for example “water please” “open please” pipi please”. Very manipulative, he asked me the other day to open the seat belt so he could play with it, I told him no, dad is driving, 2 min after he said bathroom please, so we stopped in the middle of road and he had a huge smile on his face, didn’t want to go to bathroom just got his car seat belt unbuckled and played with it. Receptively he has started following simple commands. He can hear perfectly, we did the test. He has good eye contact.

It's so hard as children are all individuals. One of mine only played alongside other children till she was about 4 but she was very articulate and could tell me why. She said she didn't know them...and she wasn't wrong! Some random child at a play group is not a friend!

I understand your concerns, I am a mum of 4, 3 NT and one ASD. Have you been to see your Peadiatrician ? My advice would be to make a list of your concerns, with examples. As many as you can. It may be nothing, but it's best to be prepared for any questions. On my family's instance, it was very easy to dismiss individual incidents or concerns because he was only little, but when I looked at the bigger picture, I realized that we needed professional guidance.

And in the meantime, enjoy whatever he gives you. I know how consuming concerns can be. Big hugs. Xxx

has he ever be seen by a paed and salt and had assessments done? This should answer some questions.

It's obviously not a normal development but you know that.

I would get him referred to paed and take things from there.

Are you in the UK? If so speak to the health visitor and ask for a referral to the community paediatrician

No I’m in USA. We saw developmental paed when he was 2, there concerns of ASD but she asked us to come back in few months. We didn’t go back but I got him all the services, speech, OT, Aba. As he grows a lot of the red flags have gone away, but still speech and sensory issues, no restricted interests.

For me there's a lot of red flags here (SALT in training) and I would start to push for an ASD assessment process. He's still young, but to me the speech and sensory issues need to be further investigated.

I was just wondering why speech is taking this pattern now, with so much vocal sounds, when he was progressing pretty well.