Getting myself in a state about 2yo speech delay

[bluesacalling]

I’m spiralling this evening and just want some hand holding. My 2y 3m old is a happy, cheeky, energetic, funny boy and is meeting all other milestones but is struggling with his speech.

We are seeing a private speech therapist and are seeing some slow progress, but he particularly struggles with making certain sounds and refuses to imitate sounds/words which makes me think it’s something more than a speech delay. Speech therapist doesn’t suspect ASD (he’s very communicative in other ways and points, shows/brings me things and will look at me for reactions etc) but is concerned about his lack of muscle movement around his mouth (doesn’t purse his lips to kiss, can’t blow bubbles etc) and now I’ve gone down a Google rabbit hole of verbal dyspraxia and I’m spiralling.

Not even sure why I’m posting on here, I’ve heard countless of stories from people whose child/grandchild/nephew/friend/Einstein didn’t speak until they were 3 etc and all of a sudden had a speech explosion. But something in me just can’t imagine this happening with my son and I don’t know why. I’ve recently had a second baby so my hormones/emotions are admittedly all over the place and I’m absolutely exhausted so maybe this explains a lot. I just want to stop being an anxious, worrisome mess and help my boy 😔

It’s the unknown that is the hardest part, if I knew that he would hit a certain age and start talking then I’d be ok but I’ve got so many what ifs in the back of my mind. Thank you everyone for your kind words, reassurance and advice. I feel in a very lonely place at the moment and your messages have helped.

My son is 2yr 10months and just started preschool in September. We had a full 5 weeks of hell dropping him off, in the last 2-3 weeks he’s so happy going in. He has a speech delay, only started using 2 word phrases, but teacher just told me he’s still not participating in activities and only started to sit at the table for lunch, he’ll colour for a few minutes but that’s the only activity he’ll do. I am so worried now about him mixing, I thought he was doing well as he was happy going in but now this has knocked me. He just started SLT, we just had one session. But I am so worried about him mixing and for his speech to come on. Anyone else have similar challenges?

Just to add before preschool he was at home with nanny and grandad while parents worked

I have 3 children

DS1 didnt utter a single word or sound apart from 'uh' until her was nearly 2.5. As soon as he started talking he very rapidly caught up but some pronunciation was off He then saw a speech therapist for a few years. He is now 17 and since he was in primary school has an outstanding vocabulary and is very clever. He does have some ASD traits.

DD was the opposite and an early talker, never shut up!

DS2 had glue ear and had to have grommets so although he was talking at a normal age he enuncuation was very poor and he had several years of speech therapy.

@bluesacalling Hello, some update?

Hi there, his speech is still behind but he is making progress. He’s up to about 30-40 words and starting to put words together. So far he hasn’t had the language explosion I was (and still am) hoping for but when I wrote my original post he wasn’t saying ‘mummy’ or using it to call me, and now he doesn’t stop 😁So I’m learning to celebrate the small wins and embrace the challenges.

You sound like a fantastic mum. And it is good that he is making progress and getting help. My little girl was a late speaker. She started saying a handful of worlds between 2 and 3 but sentences came between 3 and 4 slowly. She is bilingual and has huge adenoids but her hearing tested fine when she was younger. She turned 2 just before the pandemic hit so we saw no professionals on person until she started nursery at 4. In my case my gut feeling was that she was understanding and responding appropriately to everything we said and i felt like she was just busy thinking about things and learning other things and she had utterly no interest in speaking to us as she was very capable of communicating in other ways. Despite knowing that there were good reasons why she was likely a bit later and that my gut said she was fine I would have moments where I would watch my friend's bilingual child who was 4.months younger than her chat away and have a moment of anxiety that I was trying to kid myself. She turned 7 last week and I don't think that she has actually stopped talking since she was 5. Now when we go out people ask me if she ever shuts up. Her language skills are amazing too. She is very articulate and uses words way in advance of her age and now has a reading age of about 11 or 12. Her school can't find enough appropriate books for her. Her teacher regularly updates me on the things she says in class that has the teacher in stitches as she has a very dry humour and can express it well. The key for her speech was when she was confident she was understanding the grammar and sentence structure in 2 languages. That was when she just went for it, she definitely has a personality that likes to fully understand something before she does it. Which now means that I get inundated with rapid fire questions about everything!

@Brenna24 thank you for sharing your experience 💐 I’m a lot more relaxed about it than I was but still have a pang of sadness sometimes where I wish I could have a chat with him like I see other 2.5 year olds doing! But he understands and follows instructions, and wants/tries to communicate to I just need to be patient!

One of mine didn't talk at all until he was almost 4. He got surgery to remove his tonsils and adenoids and quite quickly developed speech after that.

@bluesacalling So at 2y 3m how many words he had?

I can’t really remember but probably around 10 or so that he consistently used. He had a lot more that he said once or twice but then didn’t use again.

@bluesacalling And did you count animal sounds?

My DS was passing all the HV "hearing tests" but not speaking, only a few words at 2. Finally at 4 he had an audiology test, and was found to have considerable hearing loss, and got grommets. After that his hearing was declared to be fine.

However, hearing isn't just a matter of what's physically happening in the ear, there's also how the brain interprets it. DS hadn't been hearing consonants, only vowel sounds, so his brain hadn't learned how to hear consonants. It took many years of speech therapy to get his speech to a level where anyone other than DH and I could understand it.

He had other problems, in being severely dyslexic, and although no ASD diagnosed is what people in general identify as "on the spectrum" and this has caused him problems all through his life, but I don't know how much was caused by his hearing.

So what I'm saying is you're right to be concerned, to get extra help for him, to pursue the glue ear hypothesis. But on the other hand, with hard work you can get over problems of early hearing loss.

His speech is a bit ahead of my dd2 (now adult) and way ahead of dd1 (who was diagnosed with autism at 2.5). It's easy for me to say as I know my dd2 is fine but try not to worry, they develop at different paces. Just as a heads up, do watch for signs of dyslexia later as late speech and dyslexia are commonly associated, my dd has dyslexia but I can reassure you that with early extra support through primary school she is achieving really well, well above average, with a masters level qualification

@Needer8954 He probably had about 3-4 animals noises on top of the words he had and a couple of signs.

@mitogoshigg thank you 🙏🏼

@bluesacalling May I ask how your son has progressed?

Get his ears checked again, if he's had glue ear there could still be something going on.

I didn't speak at all until I was 3. I grunted. Then just started speaking in sentences. I clearly remember asking lots of questions and my older sister being cross and my mum saying "at least she's talking now!" I imagine it was all a bit scary for everyone before though. I had to see a speech and language therapist for a while, not sure if this caused the talking or was just after that happened. (I just remember getting to play with lots of exciting fisher price toys; it was about 1982 though)

He had grommets inserted and his adenoids removed about two months ago and we’ve seen a noticeable improvement in his speech and language since then. He’s putting more words together, even some 3-4 word sentences, and has more single words too. He is still behind for his age and his clarity isn’t always great so he has a long way to go to catch up, but I’m so proud of how far he has come.

This is completely anecdotal but I know lots and lots of very very chatty older children (and adults) whose parents tell me that they were silent when they were little! We always make the joke that after a quiet childhood, they're making up for it now!

I just met a sweet five year old boy who was articulate and intelligent, holding a full conversation with my much older DC, and was very surprised when his mum told me that he had done loads of speech therapy and didn't used to be able to talk much at all. I thought to myself how much his mum must have worried!

I have no advice but hopefully your child will catch up soon!