Is it my fault my son has a speech delay?

[butterfly5556]

I know there are bigger things going on in the world right now, but I'm worried and need to vent.

My little one is 2.5, and I can’t help but feel guilty that his speech is ‘behind’ - he does say lots of different words, lots of different sounds etc. Some words are very big words, and he has begun to join them together and make small sentences but it’s not all the time. It’s hard not to compare his development when lots of other toddlers his age or younger are speaking so much more fluently. I have spoken to the HV myself and she gave me a number to ring to be signposted. Rang speech and language and they have put us on the waiting list for the initial assessment to see if he even needs speech therapy. I’ve also rang ICAN which was recommended by my HV whilst I wait, and I’ve got a call next week with a speech therapist for half an hour. It’s a free 30 minute consultation to establish if he needs therapy, I presume the consultation would lead to me paying privately for the therapy they offer. It will be nice to have some clarity from a professional whilst we wait on the NHS I suppose. I wish I was in the position to afford assessments/therapies privately but it’s just not feasible. I’m trying everything I can but feel like I’ve failed him. He was 6 months old when the world went into lockdown, so we didn’t get out much to socialise. Before lockdown we went to baby groups and he saw other kids etc. As it loosened up we went back but I’m worried incase those vital learning months I’ve stunted him by being trapped in the house with me, we did have lots of days where we would watch tv because there was just nothing to do, of course we did other things together but now I’m constantly thinking back and saying to myself did I play with him enough, did I read enough to him?

He attends nursery one day a week which we pay for (it's all we can afford) as we don't get any financial help - he has done since he was 1.5, he loves it and I don't think the nursery have any concerns. When he is 3 he'll get 30 free hours so he can go for 3 days which I think will help him, I'm hoping his speech will be much improved by then as it's over 6 months away.

Opinions would be great.

Firstly no, it's not your fault. And secondly, he's only 2.5 and you are seeking help for him so you are doing everything right. My friends son has a speech issue, he's 4 years old and is seeing a speech therapist, sadly lock down meant at the age she was concerned, 2 to 3 years, there was no help available. He's doing OK though.

Did you talk to him?
Yes?
So not your fault
Unless you were completely silent with him and never spoke at all to him ?
You say "we" so your partner talked to him yes?
So not his fault either

Some kids have speech delays
Get into speech therapy,
Talk to him, name things, watch something special and use signs and pictures to support communication

Oh and re the TV, I had a very precocious early talker, she watched absolutely shitloads of TV, as her twin was very physically demanding and I was so sleep deprived until they were about 3 years old, so it's not that. In fact I think the TV helped her speaking 😂

Also if he's making sentences I'd say he's absolutely fine, sorry only just noticed that bit, definitely my last comment, I don't think you have anything to worry about personally.

No, it is not your faul. Not at all.
Have been in your position- now he is 17
I also had an ICan consult years ago. They were surprisingly helpful.
My suggestions are:
Also have his hearing tested for glue ear, especially if he has had ear infections. If he has glue ear it will affect his speech as he will not be able to hear properly. The solution is grommits - which you may have to push for as sometimes the nhs doesn’t want to do it - maybe because of cost.
Ask in the ican consult what you can do to encourage speech. If he has a dummy take it away if you can.
I very much doubt his time with you caused any speech issues. Keep chatting away to him - talk about what you are doing, play games with him. Ask questions that can’t have a yes/no answer.

As an early years SEND professional, I’d have absolutely no concerns about him at this point from what you’ve said.

Both my children had/have motor planning problems leading to speech disorders that have needed a lot of therapy to address. My younger child also suffers from recurring glue ear to the point where he is now moderately deaf and wears a hearing aid to function. So obviously it's not my fault that they didn't talk as they were meant to, but I absolutely understand you going over and over everything you did. I am 99.99% certain that you have done nothing 'wrong'.

I will say, brace yourself to be patronised left right and centre. If one more person had smugly said "oh my child has a great vocabulary because I read to them" I might have twatted them. Also a lot of the initial support from NHS speech and language (if you're lucky enough to see them) is aimed at children with language delays as a result of coming from families where they genuinely weren't stimulated, read to or spoken with. So you have to get past that with gritted teeth.

Lastly I can't recommend enough that you learn some signing. Makaton is amazing for allowing them to express the language they know while they work on spoken expression. Saved us a lot of frustration. I learned through Mr Tumble and YouTube, mainly.

Good luck.

Why do you think he has speech delay? You say he has lots of different words, including some long ones and is also starting to put words together in short sentences. That sounds absolutely fine to me and age appropriate for 2.5 years. I can see why the nursery don't have any concerns.

Talking generally really takes off between age 2 and 3 years. Some will be early and some will be later. Boys are quite often a little bit later to talk than girls.

I think you need to stop comparing and enjoy chatting to your little boy and spending time with him. TV is fine too - particularly the Cbeebies type of educational program. The more he hears the more he'll learn but I really don't think you have anything to be worried about at all.

At 2.5, he's still very young. My little boy was approaching 3 and he had about 5 words but he understood what people said to him. He was in fulltime childcare and they didn't have any concerns but I was worried so asked for a SLT referral. We went for assessment and they weren't concerned but said they would keep him under review.

Then we went into lockdown, nursery closed, no SLT and both DH and I working from home while caring for DS. Honestly he learned to talk from CBeebies during lockdown. His talk is perfect now and since SLT reopened, they reassessed him and discharged him.

While you're right to get him checked if even for your own piece of mind, you are not to blame.

There is constant comparison between children, particularly at that age, and it just stresses parents out.

No, not your fault.
My dd was like this. She’s now 12 and won’t shut up

My little nephew didn't really start to talk much until 4. Passive screen time isn't recommended by the WHO until 2 and he watched TV as his older siblings watched it. His younger sibling, also exposed to TV more than recommended, spoke far earlier. So it definitely is more complex than you should have done more with him.

My son didn't speak until he was nearly 3. He was pretty much mute ! Then one day it began and he hasn't stopped since . He knows all the words, the meanings etc . He was just lazy partly our fault as we would say " do you want a drink " here you go" and not give him time to answer. Also we used to do alot of playing with us doing the talking and character voices !

After a session with the therapist and her telling us to just sit and observe his play , and make him ask for things not point then get them for him . It made a massive difference and he began to talk.

He is 6 now and all he has trouble with is the L sound so he sees the school therapist once a week x x

I have been here OP.

DS started reception and teacher said she couldn't understand him and he should go for speech therapy. I knew he pronounced things badly but I understood him and had that annoying habit that mums have, or repeating the word properly, to help him to learn to say it. Like he would say 'yeyyo, and I would say yellow afterwards.

Anyway it turned out he has had glue ear and continued to get this for about 6-8 months of the year. We went through a cycle of his hearing being tested and then them Saying it's not good enough but come back in six months to see where it's at and it being ok, then going through the same process the year later.

His younger DS had perfect hearing and would be correcting his speech for place names etc when they were about 6 and 8 so it really didn't go away so quickly.

This has finally solved itself and he is clearly hearing fine and his speech is good, although he mumbles/trips up on words when he is shy and having to speak in front of other people

However as soon as I realised we had an issue with his speech I began to read to him religiously every night. He is now 11 and I still do. His school has the accelerated reader scheme and they have put him second highest in his year group as his vocabulary understanding is so good. And he did a CAT test for verbal recently and got 139 so it's clearly done something

My second child did not speak until he was three..he was lazy and had an older sister who spoke for him!! He is now 25 and still doesn’t have a lot to say but is a scientist and extremely articulate when necessary!! Dont worry ,we are all different !!

My boss had speech therapy all through his school days.. He's winning at life and talks fine, so try not to worry too much.
My son had a grand total of 5 words he could say at 2.5 the rest was gestures and noises that only really I could understand. I got so used to interpreting for him I had a hard time stopping when I didn't need to anymore 😆 he got speech and language therapy and with some simple interventions (modelling words for him) and time, he came on leaps and bounds. I stopped counting how many words he knew when he got to 3. He is now very articulate, aged 11 reading age of 16, language totally not a problem.
The speech therapist asked me how he stepped when he went up the stairs. Did he take one stair step with each foot in turn (so one stair step with left foot next stair step up with right foot), or was it one stair step every two steps (so one stair step with left foot, right foot joins the left foot, then the second stair step with left foot and right foot joins the left foot etc). My son did the latter and she wasn't surprised, apparently it is common to get the two together as it is a developmental thing. This indicated to her that it was just the way he was wired and when he was ready he'd grow out of it. Which he did. So if your son is the same you could probably feel reassured that it's not you or lockkdown but a really common normal thing.

@AmbushedByCake sorry to be that twat
It really does seem to have worked though. He wasn't keen on reading for himself.

I know that the glue ear affected him in group/loud situations and he could focus on one person. I am losing my hearing too and struggle in a group or when there is other noise in the background like the kettle on or the tap running

OP, honestly, it’s totally normal for boys in particular not to be talking at 2.5yo. I had 3 sons, and with all their friends, I can tell you it was very, very normal.
Try not to worry, you are doing everything right. I’m sure it will come.

One thing I will say about my little delayed speech lad is that he wasn't talking but he was certainly listening and to this day he is an excellent listener, he's the one everyone wants to talk to... And good listeners are more rare than good talkers, so speech delays aren't all bad. 😉

It's undstandable that you blame yourself but please don't.

Mt youngest child didn't speak much and went through a spell at around 2/3 when he stopped talking completely. He has had a stutter on and off ever since. The best thing we've done for him is help build his confidence in all areas of his life and give him time.

You seem to be doing everything right. I agree with the poster who said to get his hearing checked, otherwise try not to worry.

@Lindy2

Why do you think he has speech delay? You say he has lots of different words, including some long ones and is also starting to put words together in short sentences. That sounds absolutely fine to me and age appropriate for 2.5 years. I can see why the nursery don't have any concerns.

Talking generally really takes off between age 2 and 3 years. Some will be early and some will be later. Boys are quite often a little bit later to talk than girls.

I think you need to stop comparing and enjoy chatting to your little boy and spending time with him. TV is fine too - particularly the Cbeebies type of educational program. The more he hears the more he'll learn but I really don't think you have anything to be worried about at all.

I agree with this. I work in a preschool and would have no concerns at all

No it’s not your fault. Have his hearing tested and keep talking to him while you wait for the assessment but he’s young and he is speaking so I don’t think you should be overly worried.

Hello OP, I can understand you worrying as we all do as parents, but it's not clear to me from your OP why you are concerned? My little one is 2.5 years old, has lots of individual words and will parrot a couple of phrases ("what's that noise? "thank you very much" "oops, sorry") but other than that he's not putting words in to sentences yet and is definitely not at the point where he wants to converse with us. He has 2 big brothers so lockdown was in a house with 4 other people and he got plenty of attention (and plenty of YouTube because of his brothers, we try to read to him but he nevers sits still long enough to listen). I have zero concerns, he'll get there in the end.
My 10 year old didn't speak until he was almost 3, would point and say 'aah' to get his wishes across and he was pretty good at communicating without words. When words did finally come it was clear he had a speech impediment, as he couldn't make 9 consonant sounds (lego/yedo, jam/dam, love you/yub you, cake/tate, Cheryl/Beryl, thirty/Bertie' , fifty/ bifty , six/dix etc) including pronouncing his own name wrong. When he started preschool they agreed to support a referral to speech therapy, waited 4 months for an assessment and a further 6 months for his first speech therapy session after they had checked his hearning and confirm it was fine. The worst was 'k' and 'g' for which he said 't' and 'd', those were really hard sounds for him to learn but his reception teacher was fab and worked with us and one day he came home from school and said his name properly and I burst into tears! He only had 2 speech therapy lessons in total, by the time he was due his third they agreed to sign him off as he made such progress before his 5th birthday. He said wabbit until he was 8 which is a pretty common impediment even at that age, but now speaks perfectly and is doing well at school.

Not your fault at all. I had similar guilt especially when people would tell me to talk to him more or read to him. I then had ds2 who was treated no different and started talking in full sentences at 14 months. I realised how little it had to do with me, it’s just them as individuals.

Of course it's not your fault.

Turn on the subtitles when you watch tv if you have a speech delayed child this is one of the most useful things you can do.

Speech and language therapy at that age is mostly about playing a variety of games and blowing lots of bubbles daily