To ask for toy suggestions for 20mo with developmental delay?

[SinkGirl]

My twins are 20 months old. One is progressing well with everything but speech.

The other was doing fine, a little behind physically but further ahead cognitively, despite health issues since he was born. He was very interested in Toys especially shape sorters and anything with posting.

Two months ago he suffered what appears to be a regression. He will no longer play with anything at all, just walks up and down the room or plays with his toes. The only thing that interests him is a couple of CBeebies programmes which he loves and which make him laugh. He’s never stacked anything (we have many stacking toys as his brother loves them).

We are waiting on an MRI scan and he may have a visual impairment but overall he seems to see quite well.

I keep buying things I think might interest him but nothing does. I need some suggestions. I’m guessing sensory things would be good. Does anyone have any good suggestions for me? He likes noisy things like bell rattles and xylophones when he does want to play, so maybe more musical things? I just want him to feel more stimulated.

What about a ball, probably a beach ball if he is playing indoors? Or balloons.

We have several balls of varying sizes, not much interest - I tried balloons and had to take them away as he’s a chewer and worried they might pop in his face. He’s just started showing interest in bubbles so I have a bubble machine.

Sensory baskets would work? You could put different objects including some teething toys?

A small keyboard?

if his sight may be an issue how about a ball with. A bell inside?

Try and copy what he's doing, sit next to him and play with your toes. If he takes notice then introduce another toy like a ball by rolling it over your feet. When he walks up and down walk next to him and after a while walk and shake a rattle. He might follow your lead and open up to playing with toys again. Sounds weird but it helped us a lot when my son was being similar x

Water blocks, sand table, disco light, instruments, wobble board if he is mobile, garden toys like sand pit, mini trampoline, play silks, tuff tray for messy play

If he likes walking, get him an audible toy that walks along with him & that you can fasten around his wrist. Fisherprice do an abc dog I think.

Sorry meant to say roll ball over his feet, sensory touch especially if he's got possible visual issues x

Wooden musical instruments - there are lots of interesting ones and they are nice to feel as well as hear.
Bead maze.
Wave drum.

Thanks so much everyone, I will investigate some of these! It’s difficuly as I’ve had to remove everything wooden as he chews chunks off them (chewed a chunk off his cot recently!). He was eating anything he could find on the floor until a couple of days ago, I’m hoping that phase has come to an end but it makes things like messy play hard. I put down Rice Krispies thinking they could play with those, but no they both just ate them by the handful!

I had a similar issue with my twins. It turned out the boy with the worst developmental delay had severe glue ear which wasn't picked up until he was 3 because he was only ever given one of those very brief HV hearing tests at about a year old - at which point I think he could hear. Gradually he'd been getting deafer and deafer, hence showing less interest & response in certain things but really liking CBeebies and Scooby Doo as they were colourful and visual.

He has something called Developmental Language Disorder, which is also tied up with a bit of dyslexia, dyspraxia and some ASD traits. I don't know if the deafness caused it, but the difficulties often occur with children who have had glue ear. He didn't start talking until he was 3 and had grommets put in - before the op he had become severely deaf in one ear and moderately in the other. I'd been banging my head against various medical walls for about 18 months at that point because I knew something wasn't right but all I got from everyone, including family, was 'he's just a boy'.

This is a long way of saying it might be wise to have a proper hearing test done (not just shaking bells behind his head) as there might be enough hearing for noise but not enough for language development. Do it sooner rather than later and pay for a private one if your GP fobs you off as a fussy mother. If nothing else you'll rule it out.

His brother was also delayed to a lesser degree at that age but didn't have the ear issues, was talking by 2 and he'd caught up by the time he started school.

Just seen your last post - yes my lad would mouth anything and everything. Chewed the corners of books, ate sand - would basically try to experience everything via his mouth. Possibly because that sense became heightened as he lost his hearing, I don't know.

Have a look at chew toys aimed at children with asd or sensory difficulties.
Water play/ playing with ice cubes is good in the situation because it doesn't matter if it goes in their mouth.
Look up intensive interaction. My son loves this.

Thank you Storm this is really helpful. I’m actually more concerned about the other twin in terms of speech. The twin I’m discussing was saying dada and then mama quite early but has stopped. The other twin has never said anything other than ga (and he also has very waxy ears and prone to ear infections). I know twins tend to be more delayed in speech but don’t want that to mask a problem.

This twin is due to have an MRI soon due to a potential neurological/ genetic disorder affecting his optic nerves and other things. His brother has never had any health issues besides a couple of weeks in nicu due to prematurity, and I know neither of them have had a hearing test since nicu.

I hadn’t considered hearing issues because they obviously can hear sounds, but they still don’t respond to their own names or understand any words.

I’m going to make a GP appointment next week.

Just been talking to DH and he agrees that it would make sense for them to have a hearing issue - I feel really stupid for not thinking of this before. Our GP is very good so hopefully they’ll be willing to help.

you can pay a fortune for toys that are labelled sensory or special needs whenbi fact you can either get similar non special needs or adapt other things , my son loves water play hes 8 but has autism and learning disabilities so currently hez playing with two big tubs (we got a set from B&Q for £25 and a hose pipe with sprinkler adaption

Don't feel stupid - I didn't realise the issue was hearing for our boy either because he always did have some hearing, it's not a case or deaf or not deaf, but there's a continuum. Any ear infections he'd had were always symptomless so we had no idea what was going on.

He's 16 now and the language development issues still affect him and always will, but a lot in your post struck a chord with me so if you can avoid your boys some difficulty by addressing something so simple at this early age then I'm glad I read this and responded.

My 3.5yo has developmental delay, he's never really played with toys either. At that age he LOVED: bubble machine (chasing the bubbles around), plastic toy farm animals (first words were 'goat' and 'cow'), abacus (bright colours, rolling/twisting the beads), a muslin cloth that I'd sewn lots of different coloured and sized buttons onto.