How many non verbal children did you know growing up? How many do you know now?

[MaryMaryVeryContrary]

Not a goady thread and I wont be engaging with posters who want to speculate on the causes by starting debates about parenting and screen time.

But in the absence of any proper data, I’m interested to know whether others think there has been a rise in non verbal children (age 3 and over). I didn’t know any growing up, and now I know 3. So it seems to me there has been a rise but it may just be the area I live in.

1 and 3. That doesn't include my ds2 who can talk to his friends like any other teenager, talks to me in one word answers and doesn't talk to people he doesn't know at all. The social worker said he was "unable to communicate his needs".

None that I remember growing up in the 60s/70s and none now.

Zero and zero from me too.

You are a beautiful human being and this makes me so happy for the children you teach. The world needs more of you. A rare gem. ♥️

None and none.

The number you know is likely largely a feature of your circle. Gowing up all the children I knew were either my classmates at (mainstream/ academically selective) school, peers at extracurricular clubs or the siblings of my close friends, which is going to include far fewer children who couldn't attend mainstream school than an average cross-section of society.

As an adult my circle is much wider and the children I 'know' (some I only know of from their parents rather than having actually met them) include the children of the wide range of adults I know - so there's less selective pressure on the characteristics of the children themselves. (So whilst I can't think of any non- verbal children I know, I do know more children with a wider range of conditions than I knew I growing up).

There's also probably a clustering effect: if you know one, you're more likely to know more than one, due to a number of reasons - genetics, some causes of non-verbalism may have genetic components, or the one child you know attends services for children with similar needs thus your extended network immediately includes a number of children with similar needs or you know the children because you yourself are a part of providing/access services for children with additional needs. Factors like location will also feature probably - if there are good specialist services locally it may attract families to the area, and in general you may get more children with severe needs in less wealthy areas (due to the impact the care needs of the child have on ability of parents to continue/progress in paid employment).

I knew one growing up.
I’m a teacher and I have one in my class now although he will go to special school when he gets all the paperwork in place!

2 growing up, a family member and a little boy I used to volunteer with and none now.

Your social circle would have been much smaller when you were growing up.

I was thinking similar the other day.

Growing up in a school where I was in a large class of 40 and often put with the class above of 30+ I suspect 1 showed ADHD signs none were NV.

I now know 3 nv kids personally and 2 in a primary school.
Several have adhd/ asd (one of these is one of my dc).

I never gave and still don't give dc much screen time.

I didn't know any, not because they didn't exist, but because they would have been in special school (no SEN in mainstream back then) or institutionised.

7 then and 3 now.

I didn't know any growing up. But working as a teacher, I've met a few. It has absolutely zero to do with "parenting and screen time", so not sure why you even mentioned it at all.

I was non verbal. I know no non verbal kids now.

1 now 0

At primary school age in the 1980s I knew a few children with learning difficulties a couple of whom were non verbal (siblings of school friends). I also knew a fair number of adults who primarily communicated through makaton via my mother’s work. Today I know of three I think, and a school friend of my daughter was very delayed with his speech but is catching up now.

I don’t know, I’d have to say none and two.

We had a SEN block in school so didn’t come into contact with children with additional needs.

None and none. But I do see some due to working with children, and I’m always surprised by how many of these ‘non verbal’ children do actually speak to me.

None ever

I had never met any growing up. I now have a 15 year old non-speaking DS. I say non-speaking as he is most certainly not non-verbal, he has excellent language, he just cannot speak. I think many people use non-verbal to describe people who are actually non-speaking, not non-verbal.

I've never known anyone who was completely non-verbal, but we did have two little boys at school who had significant issues with speech delay due to their autism.

Growing up I knew 2 who were either non verbal or had selective mutism , they can talk as adults.
These days I know one child who is completely non verbal no speech at all and then I know one child who has selective mutism.
My own sibling went through a period of mutism as a teenager also

0 and 0.

I’m really not talking about mutism. I’m talking about kids who cannot speak at all.

Non verbal is not the same as situational mutism or late speech development.

In fact the parent of the child I know who is deaf, autistic and does not speak prefer the term 'non speaking' because their son uses BSL to a high level and an electronic 'talker' (AAC) and is highly communicative whereas 'non verbal' means no words. He is also teaching himself lots of different languages and can read and type in them, including ones with different alphabets.

No, one child is in DD’s class at school; the other 2 are children of people who live nearby. They’re not in my ‘social circle’ as such.