To ask for your very late talker success stories?

[YoucancallmeBettyDraper]

I don’t know if I’m being foolish to hope. My child is nearly 2 1/2 and basically non-verbal, and probably autistic. I’d love to hear stories of children that talked very late, especially autistic children. I mean are able to hold a conversation.

I just need to counter my feeling that my child will never speak to me, which is my dominant fear at the moment and which feels inevitable.

Thanks in advance

My daughter is now 10 and autistic. Didn't say a word until gone 3. She now has amazing speech. Her communication is weak but her speech is insanely sophisticated. There's always potential

My son didn’t start talking until 2.5 (a few words) but he’d had speech therapist input from about 20 months. I had kept a very close eye on his milestones and had him referred as soon as possible (while talking talking talking to him constantly, singing, exposing him to as much therapeutic play as possible).

what really helped was makaton and sing and sign, alongside the weekly speech therapy and play therapy.

he started talking fluently at 3.5 and is now very advanced

No signing, or many gestures, really (does not point). Unless it’s to songs where he can do a lot of the actions. Some babbling, and eye contact with people he knows and likes, smiles back when you smile, kisses and cuddles, games. Some good joint attention and looking to you for your reaction. He will hand you things like the tv remote or the bubbles, or walk over to the door or get in his pram if he wants to go out. He will whinge or cry or shout if he wants something. We do meet a lot of his needs before he has a chance to ask, I will say that.

Wracking my brains for more things that helped…. The play therapist got me to print out photos of family members and stapled together a little book. We went through it constantly pointing and naming everyone and that’s how he eventually learnt to say mummy and daddy and his sister’s name

I am aware that that could be the outcome. In fact I’m so sure it will be the outcome that that is why I asked for a little bit of optimism. I’m so frightened and worried and low that I just need some hope at this point.

Mine too. I felt awful actually discovered he was basically deaf ... he won't shut up now though!

@YoucancallmeBettyDraper sending you all best wishes.

Getting dc to talk (and also walk - that didn’t happen until nearly 3 as well) was my sole job in life: I quit my job and had a part time nanny help look after other dc. My life revolved around classes, appointments and drop in sessions. I researched everything going offered by the local community paediatric service and went to everything - the key being the drop in SALT sessions that led to the 1-2-1 sessions. GP was involved and hospital and community paed.

you’ve got to be completely on the ball and advocate for your dc and do your own research and follow every lead up.

apologies for spelling out the obvious but this is my lived experience

Just wanted to say Wow! to this. How amazing!

Both my DSes are autistic and have a learning disability. When they were 4 and 2, neither was talking and we were tearing our hair out (also lots of other challenges with both).

I remember our NHS speech therapist telling us she thought they both would eventually talk. At 4 the eldest started talking and now chatters away though much is stuff he's memorised. Our youngest at 8 has just started talking.

Never give up!

My son. Very slow to walk or talk. Awful tantrums lasting deep into school age.

Currently in the other room preparing UCAS applications to study music. Plays four instruments and performs regularly. Probably autistic, but said he didn’t want to be assessed. Also studying double maths and physics for A Level: Plan B was civil
engineering. Barely scraped a pass in Eng Lang/Lit GCSEs - but was all 8s & 9s in STEM.

Yes as per pp - first thing is to check they can hear! Referal to audiology asap…

Also agreeing with others, check with audiology, and remember that glue ear etc can take several appointments to determine. We ended up going private for audiology, but that’s one of the first things to get checked to rule out.

My son was barely talking at nursery at 3 and a half- they wanted us to go to council led speech therapy but then Covid happened so we couldn't attend. The nursery staff bless them did ask the service for some exercises they could do with him at the nursery to try and bring him along.

Anyway he has just finished his year 2 and he is very chatty and performing above expectations for his English, and you'd never have guessed where he was at nursery.

I think the main thing that helped was his own desire to communicate. A lot of his aggression was due to frustration. My younger son is also autistic and his path has been very different.

my eldest was dx at 2 and a half and we had a home visiting early years teacher coming three times a week. We took him to a child development centre and had sessions there too, I also spent hours on the floor every day not forcing engagement just doing things and letting him watch or participate or not as he chose. I modelled conversations by speaking his part too, just loads of stuff every day for years and years. Sort of reached into his world and let him choose to follow me into mine or not.

We had to fight so hard for everything. The fights we had to get the resources were crazy! We were told he'd never talk because if 'they' don't talk by his age they never talk. The professionals used to get so angry with us because we refused to accept their prediction and teach him makaton, put him in a special school and make him become the person they'd decided he was going to be.

I don't think we really did anything special. He became the person he was always going to be, in his own time.

My eldest is autistic. He was non-verbal until nearly 3. I didn't know anything about autism at the time but wondered about his hearing, which was assessed as fine. Then suddenly he said 4 words in one week, all 3-syllable words and one of which was a very inventive word he had made up to mean something specific that he didn't know the real word for. It became clear that he may not have been talking, but he'd been doing a whole lot of listening, as he spoke increasingly fluently after that. Shortly afterwards it became apparent that he could also read.

Late speech runs in our family, as does autism, but the overlap isn't as complete as you might imagine. DS2 was late to speak but is neurotypical. DS3 is autistic but was early to speak. I'm autistic but was early/average to speak, but my sister didn't talk until 3 and is NT (which may be why I didn't worry much about DS1).

I personally wouldn't worry unduly at 2.5, especially if you suspect autism. They're all a bit different but imo 2.5 is within the range of normality.

My friend’s son didn’t talk until he was 4 (just made noises prior). He is now 6 and talks fluently in sentences. His speech just snowballed when he turned 4 and he caught up very quickly! He is doing well in mainstream school, can hold conversations, initiate conversations etc. Some things for you to consider that could help:

• Read the Hanen book “it takes two to talk”. A little pricey but most of the strategies a speech therapist would tell you to implement are in there. It is very detailed with examples, images and guidance on how you can help
• read the Hanen book “more than words”. It follows on from the book mentioned above.
• implement a communication tool at home to help your child to communicate. PECS (picture exchange) is great for two reasons - your child can use pictures (chosen by you to suit needs) to communicate to encourage interaction and alleviate frustrations, and the words underneath the images on the cards will help your child to read. My friend’s child who used this tool is now also a fluent reader. If you don’t want to use PECS then you can try a communication board (core 30 or core 50).
• Hanen also do free courses where you will get access to a speech therapist and attend weekly sessions (with observations). It will also give you an opportunity to speak to other parents who are in a similar position to you. Have a look on their website to apply.

Hang in there and give your child time, some children just talk late! 🌸

A little boy I look after is ASD and did not begin to talk until he was almost 4 years old. To begin with it was just the odd word - and unintelligible to anyone other than his mum. But then after he started school at 4 1/2 his speech development increased dramatically, perhaps in response to the need to make himself understood (at home he had mainly used his own form of sign language).
A year after starting school he was able to engage in a conversation and, providing the other person knew the context, could make himself understood to strangers.

Both my two were very late talkers, 3+ for both boys.

DS1 is very likely to be autistic, we haven’t persued a diagnosis yet. He started reception with very unclear speech, because it was all still new to him. We had seen the SALT with little success, he just started talking when he was ready. With him being our first I was absolutely neurotic and so so worried but he is now super articulate and excels in English and loves reading. He struggles socially and instigating conversation with his peers but is much more confident around adults. Lots of other flags pointing to ASD but he was a definite late talker.

DS2 was also a late talker but he lots of ear problems from about 12months old and only grew out of it in the past twelve months. Every time he had a cold he would then get an ear infection which would then cause a perforated ear drum. He tried to communicate more than my older son but got frustrated when he couldn’t . He’s now very chatty and I spend half my life either dying a little bit inside with what he’s said or apologising for what he’s just said/asked🙈.

I remember being where you are now OP, more so with elder son and it’s so worrying. I must have sounded like such a performance parent all the time trying to get him to talk, walking round the bloody supermarket narrating our trip “oh look, APPLES, can you say apples? Let’s get some red apples. Can you carry the red apples for mummy. Pop the red apples on there. Now let’s put the red apples in the bag…….” And so on, took forever to get round Tesco!🤣

@YoucancallmeBettyDraper I remember this too well, my DS was non-verbal with no way of communicating or understanding words/language at 2 and three Doctors and two speech therapists warned me that he might never talk, he couldn't show me where it hurt when he was stung by a wasp because pointing is communication and the thought of him not being to tell me where it hurt was awful, regardless of it being ASD or anything else - I'm sorry that you're going through this.

With a lot of speech therapy with a great speech therapist and a 1-1 in nursery DS had the ADOS/MDA at 3.5 and was diagnosed with a speech & language delay not an ASD (disorder) and went onto talk understandably in sentences around 4.5, I delayed him starting school by a term, it was very slow gradual progress but he's doing great at school now a few years later.

There is so much out there on the internet that points to ASD and very very little on the many kinds of speech & language delays/disorders.

I found a book called 'Late talking boys' quite helpful and also the website 'Teachmetotalk.com' that has a check-list of all the pre-verbal communication skills a toddler goes through before speech.

If you look at late talking threads on the special needs section here you will see a lot of posts about pointing to show joint attention as being an important step on the way to talking - my DS did this around 2.5 and made his first very unclear speech sounds 6 months later.

Thank you from the bottom of my heart for these responses. I am exhausted so will reply to more tomorrow, but have read every single one. Just to add yes we have been to audiologist who said he can hear but may have had episodes of glue ear in his first year. I expect that’s the case but also suspect ASD and are on the list for that. In the meantime we have private speech therapy and speech therapy in nursery and fun classes that he likes all helping him with his communication. And we are doing lots of intensive interaction at home. I will try out all of your tips that you have shared - I’m so so grateful. I have been beside myself with worry, and need to learn not to catastrophise, worrying though it is.

My eldest had very little speech for a long time, I struggle to remember exact timings. Referral to speech and language therapy aged 2, saw them probably about 2.5/3 and was said to have a severe expressive and receptive language delay. His lack of understanding was the biggest concern. He would get very distressed often. Didn't toilet train until shortly before he started school. Had a SaLT programme used at home and nursery and made so much progress. Once he really started talking, we couldn't shut him up. Still can't! Behaviour very difficult in reception and year 1, major difficulties with transitions. Diagnosed with autism age 6. He's now 9 and he's clever, articulate, extremely loving and sweet. Despite some major bumps in the road, he's an absolute delight. Beautifully behaved the vast majority of the time (if he isn't, you can guarantee there's a very good reason for it), has amazing friends, very gifted at maths, and amazing company. A lot of people can't tell he's autistic. His language is quite formal, he loves rules and safety, has a head full of numbers, he's just fantastic. You really never know what will happen with your son. ❤️

I'm not remotely clued up on SEN issues, so please forgive me - I can only describe my own experiences.
My DS2 had his two year check with the health visitor, and I'd been advised that he 'should' have a certain number of words. I can't remember the number, but DS fell massively short on it.
I spent way too much time worrying about him not meeting his milestones, and being behind his peers.

Fast forward to now.. He received his GCSE results last month - six 9's, 2 8's and a 7.
So, he's doing fine.

Mine. Talks the hind leg off a donkey sometimes. Really fun and interesting to chat to, loads of facts. Autistic. Sweet and loving. The absolute joy of my life at 12. Friends - lots, a bit below average in mainstream school. Had a bit of an avalanche of talking at about 4. Try the Hanen programme "more than words". Development was not linear but it comes and when it does its great to celebrate.

9!

My DC is 9 and has just started talking in the last few months. Mainly single words asking for foods etc but also some simple sentences. Diagnosed with autism and paediatrician said unlikely to speak. I’m not sure if we will ever have a conversation but I didn’t think we would ever hear a single word!

Meeeeeee till nearmy 3.5 try shut me up now