Speech delay (experiences)

[JohnPA]

One of my adopted sons is 4 years old, and has a significant speech delay. He is able to understand everything we say, he follows instructions clearly, and he is very smart in other areas, however he doesn’t speak clearly. There are no signs of autism. The problem is that he speaks using a few words at a time (rather than longer sentences), his speech is muffled, and we (his parents) are the only ones able to understand him. He also finds it a bit difficult to learn numbers and the alphabet, so he could be dyslexic just like both his biological parents were (we’re not sure though). He has been referred for speech support by his nursery and GP but we have been waiting since 2020. He is starting reception in September and we are worried for him and concerned that he won’t do well at school and will always be behind, which could have an effect in his self-esteem.

I wanted to ask if anyone had experienced this issue (significant speech delay at this age, but no other concerns) and how did your kid perform in school. Did things improve, were they able to speak properly at some point? Were they always delayed in relation to other kids?

Thanks!

I cant help here but just wanted to say I will be interested in the responses you get as you could have just described our child.

Reception teacher here - please don't worry about letter/number recognition. Dyslexia is rarely diagnosed before 7 years of age. 50% of my current class can't consistently recognise numbers to 10 or the letters of the alphabet - it will come with time.

Speech delays are very common in our school and I have a number of children who communicate in the way you describe - I have no concerns about their understanding but they speak in short phrases, often with words in the wrong order.

Speech & Language therapists will be able to give you advice and suggestions of strategies and games to use - these can be very successful.

My youngest had severe speech delay. She had at least 2 NHS hearing tests that she passed but it turned out she had a distorted heat curve that was inverted.

Apparently hearing has to be very poor to meet
The criteria of hearing impaired on the NHS

Fortunately Johansen therapy resolved the hearing issue and DD learnt to speak properly over time.

Id echo the advice to have his hearing checked, kids learn to mask hearing loss at a very young age and it can look like developmental delays or learning difficulties. Also have a look and see if your SALT team have an advice line, they might be able to give you activities and strategies to use while you wait for therapy.

I read your post in the middle of the night and came back on this morning to write exactly what JP has said! Haha.

Children are really good at masking hearing loss. You'll be surprised how many parents don't pick up on it. You can self refer in most areas to audiology for a test. I would suggest googling your nearest.

SALT provision is really behind at the moment. I would recommend paying privately if you're able to. You could ring up your local nhs SALT also and just see what they say. Don't wait for the GP or nursery. This may be just my experience but it seems to take ages for these things unless I do it myself.

While waiting for therapy and also during therapy, there is a lot you can be doing at home. These are some videos which provide information

My son was just like this. He was adopted at 6 months and didn’t really speak properly until he was about 8. He understood everything but it was very difficult to understand him.

He had a lot of speech therapy which we funded privately and one or two blocks of NHS speech therapy. The waiting list for the NHS speech therapy was very long and there was a gap of about 18 months between the two blocks, so we just paid for a private speech therapist to see him in between.

My son is 19 now and at university. He got 3 good A Levels, so his speech delay didn’t have a terrible impact on his academic development, though I suppose it might have done had we not paid for so much early intervention. He had occupational therapy as well, which really helped with his handwriting. He had beautiful handwriting when he was about 5 - everyone commented on it - and it was definitely because of the occupational therapy!

Children make the most progress between the ages of 0 and 5, so if I were you, I would try to find a private speech therapist now while you wait for your son to be offered a block of NHS speech therapy.

For my son it was worth every penny and I don’t regret it at all. I know it’s not something he would have outgrown, as even now there are a few words that he still struggles with.

Hi, I’m an education professional who has worked with a number of children with speech delay and no other concerns.
I would echo that you should get his hearing tested urgently, schools/nurseries cannot refer for that in most LAs.
We have had amazing progress using an approach called Intensive Interaction. This is a programme used for children with other complex needs too, but it does really support spoken language development in any child. www.intensiveinteraction.org/

Gosh, that’s a horribly long time to have been waiting.

My son is 3 and his speech sounds similar to your DS’s. He has had NHS speech therapy (I realise how lucky we were!) and has actually made huge strides in terms of the amount of speech and language he has. Now it’s mainly a question of clarity.

If you can pay for it privately, I really would. The thing about speech therapy is that you don’t actually need lots of sessions - you’re doing most of the work/practice at home as the parent, the sessions set you up and tell you what to do, and support you along the way.

I guess another option would be to apply for ASF funding. It’s a bit of a grey area because they want you to use universal services where available but I guess you could say it’s not available as you’ve been waiting so long?

(Though we’ve been waiting since Jan this year for ASF funding for our DD, so who knows if that would be any quicker)