What do I do if I think my DS is developmentally delayed?

[DreamingofSunshine]

I've been off during lockdown and DS hasn't been at nursery, he returned for the first time this week. During this time I've noticed a few things which don't seem quite right, and I had a look at the ASQ 36 month questionnaire (he's 35.5 months) and he's not able to do most of the things on the list. He's also in the process of a SALT referral but it all stopped due to CV19. He was late with several earlier milestones- sitting, crawling, talking etc.

Who would I approach to get him assessed? We have private health insurance so can go down that route if we need to.

Bumping this for you. All I can think of is asking your health visitor but hopefully somebody else has a bit more advice.

We asked our nursery’s SENCO to support us to push our referral through quickly - is that something your nursery could do for you?

As he is at Nursery, then ask if you can have a chat with the SENCO.
I presume you aren't able to go in at the moment, but she will be able to call you when it is convenient.

I should have mentioned, I've asked to speak to the SENCO at nursery multiple times since January and I don't get a response.

I will contact the health visitor though, thanks for the suggestion.

Senco, HV then doctor. Keep asking, keep leaving messages and pushing for help.
Unfortunately, in my experience, you need to keep hammering down doors. Good luck

Keep fighting, you'll need to constantly chase things up. Never stop.

Go to the Manager and let her know that you've asked to speak to the SENCo several times and she has never called you back.

HV will refer to community paediatrician, and your child may then be offered a multi disciplinary assessment (physiology/OT/SALT etc)

Thank you everyone.

The nursery manager is the SENCo which doesn't help. I appreciate that things are incredibly busy for them at the moment but this has been going on for months so I'm looking for a new nursery which isn't easy at the moment.

We can go through our health insurance to see a paediatrician quickly, would this be worthwhile.

I have tried contacting the health visitor and could not get through at all!!!! You might be more lucky.

Personally I would go GP first and if you feel they're not helping you go private.

We don't have insurance but we were worried about DD2 and the GP referral was going to take months!!! We went to private paediatrician instead because we felt it needed to be dealt with quickly. (She was alright! )

@DreamingofSunshine if you can go privately then I would say yes, do it. Even if you just end up getting peace of mind!

The more people you can speak to the better in my experience. We spent a long time worrying about DS as he was approx 6-9 months behind in his development - very late crawling, very late walking and didn’t speak until approx 2 years and 3 months (now 2 years and 9 months and doesn’t stop!!). He also couldn’t do most of the things on the 2 year health check (eg still can’t thread beads, can’t draw a circle independently etc). He also used to present some different behaviours such as intense aggression and withdrawal from social situations.

We went to our gp multiple times to be referred and each time the referral was blocked as we were told just to wait and see. Our HV didn’t return my calls asking for support as I think they’re just so overwhelmed in the area that we’re in by other challenges. Once nursery got involved our referral was pushed through within weeks and we saw our SLT (who is so lovely) who couldn’t give us a confirmation of what was or wasn’t going on, and then referred us to a paediatrician who confirmed DS was showing full signs of a speech delay and gave us a number of techniques to use that were also shared with nursery for them to support us. He also explained to us that the other behaviour came from not being able to speak but once speech came the other learning areas would follow, and in our case we have found this to be true. DS is now on track with expected development for his age, other than in a few small areas such as the bead threading, but I’m sure he’ll get there in his own time!

Are you able to ring your nursery and discuss over the phone? I realise a face to face meeting will be difficult right now but a phone call might be more manageable for your nursery manager given the circumstances.

someaddedsugar thanks for sharing your experience. DS is under an SLT for speech issues (not delay) and swallowing issues. I will ask her but I'm tempted to make a private appointment with a paediatrician and see what they say, as you and @grey12 say I might get some peace of mind!

I know all children are different, and I'm not hysterical that he can't do everything on the 36 month questionnaire perfectly. But the combination of the speech and swallowing issues, not being able to do any of the gross or fine motor skills, being late on the earlier milestones and a complete refusal to potty train makes me think it's worth getting more looked at.

I'll try again with nursery this week and see if I can get anywhere. The SALT and nursery won't really work together as they are in different boroughs which is very frustrating- apparently they aren't allowed to attend a meeting if it's not in their borough just send the report.

If he is already under the care of SALT I would definitely raise your other concerns with them.