Language ( and speech ) development - please advice

[BusyBeeMommy]

I have a very active 3.5 year old toddler, who goes to nursery full time. Was seen by SENCO for delayed speech development and now visited by councils speech therapist. However that is going very slow, I feel I am not doing enough to help him/me understand whats going on. I need some desperate advice and inputs on couple of things from mums out there

1. DS is very sharp child, he obsessed about numbers, shapes, colours, quite creative too. ( Not boasting ) he knew numbers till 100 before he was two, alphabets, calls an egg 'ellipse'. His vocab is quite big too. However doesn't like to speak/communicate. There is no issue with 'speak-ability', he can say complex word. However never asks questions ( except I want that/need that ) or no answering to questions. He seems to have selective deafness.

I also feel he has difficulty understanding the language. His speech is highly echo-lactic. He just repeats last two words of what ever we say.

1. Very active, never settles down. Gets bored very easily. We tried pretend/role play, gets too excited and just wants to run around. Never plays with other children, does play along side sometimes.

He prefers company of grown-ups and grown up things like laptops ( his own VTech doesnt appeal to him )

I am so worried whether we are overlooking any of the syndrome. His therapy has been on for last 5 months, havent seen any major progress. Its as though stopped growing up after 2.. Any advice or recommendations out there?

I have just ordered 'It takes two to talk', working out on how we can help him. Many thanks

Hi

My little boy is now 4 years and has really just started speech therapy. He is also very active and never sits down, does play but tends to be to his rules. Also has selective deafness.
The speech therapist has giving me a care plan which she said can take up to a year to address some of the basic aspects of his speech.

Your little boy sounds highly intelligent, and without sounding flippant, my mum always used to say that if a child is sharp in some areas they may be slower in others.

I think with my little boy I have tried to implement that philosophy too. I was getting very worried and obsessive about his speech (often discussing it in front of him, which is a real no-no)

I now realise he is just a normal little lad, he concentrates so hard that he doesn't hear us, or is exercising control and chooses not to hear us. lol.
Speech therapy is a slow and steady progress and I've stopped comparing him to other children as I do believe he will catch up with our help and efforts.
But remember you know your little one better then anybody else, if you feel gut wise there is something then push and push for assessment.

Sorry I have waffled!

I would ask your GP for a referral to see a Paed for an assessment. It's great that the SALT is already involved but they will be (understandably) focusing on the language issues rather than the bigger picture.

I have a ds who is similar to your description of your ds. He has a diagnosis of Aspergers but obviously this doesn't mean that your ds has this too.

One thing that really helped in the early days was to keep language very simple, eg "John go park" instead of "Shall we go to the park, John". You'll feel a bit silly at first, especially if your ds speaks as though he is a young professor like mine does, but it can really help with understanding.

In our case, ds learned language by going back to the basics. So, for example, we started with simple nouns and moved on to simple verbs. It's a bit like learning a foreign language and putting the pieces together.

Sounds like you have a very smart little boy there. Did the Senco discuss the other aspects of how he is with you, or just the speech? A lot of the things you describe sound very normal (most three year old boys find it very hard to sit still and don't answer your questions). It might be worth asking about some of the other things you mention though. His ability with numbers sounds tremendous, for example, and it might give some insight into what's going on in his head.

Coppertops advice on keeping the language simple is v good. Someone explained to me that some children can take things very literally - so when you say "can you sit at the table" they genuinely take it as a question rather than an instruction. This helped me a lot with one of my boys when he was three. He had some similarities with your son BTW and I was concerned about possible aspergers, but I'm now pretty sure he isn't.

I have a thread going in this section to regarding my 3 year olds speech and behaviour it's titled "3 year old with delayed speech and behaviour. Really need advice" (sorry I'm crap at links!)

I was given some great advice and also recomended some books "It takes two to talk" being the most highly recomended.

I have just come back from an assessment with a independant speech therapist and she was great. Rather than his speech she is going to be focussing on his listening and attention skills. I thought ds had selective deafness too but actually he is basically just not willing to engage in converation or activities that he doesn't want to so just won't acknowledge people if he's not interested.

It was amazing to watch her with him and to hear her explaining his behaviour as it was happening. The way everything has to be on his terms or not at all!

Thank you very much for all of your inputs, Sorry couldnt reply eariler.
beesting, you are right, my dad says the same. "You cant have everything love!!" DS is too focused on certain things. and speech doesnt appeal as much to him. I guess I am getting obssessed about this speech, need to take it at his pace.

Coppertop, schmee thanks SENCO is only address speech atm, I think I will ask the GP for an paed assessment.
ConnorTraceptive, do you advice for private speech therapy? I have no complaints with current therapist,
however I am yet see DS bond with her.

Many thanks again
for your inputs..

Busybeemommy - we went down the private speech therapy line simply because it has taken so long for the health visitor to make an NHS referal and now the waiting list is up to 6 months I just didn't want to wait any longer.

We are still on the waiting list for NHS speech therapist but will continue with private until the appoinitment comes through and go from there.

We've only had one assessment session with the private therapist and I was impressed with her but having not yet seen an NHS one I have nothing to compare with so couldn't say whether she was better if you get me?

Thanks ConnorTraceptive, yes, thats my main concern too. The NHS process seems to be very slow. With my DS the process started 8 months back we have had one initial assessment. I am hoping it would pick up in next few months. May be I should persue for overall assessment from pead than getting a private therapist, though it wouldnt hurt to get another opinion...

Our private assessment cost £80 and took an hour. It was very usefull and I feel she really manage to pin point ds's area of most need.

We saw her yesterday morning and by the afternoon she had already phoned the pre school to discuss ds so we're all on the same page.

BusyBee,

I would definitely ask for assessment from a paediatrician. As for overlooking syndromes, the paediatrician may suggest having him assessed further. Everyone feels differently about labels - they should act as a key in a lock so you can access help. The main downside is that professionals can focus too much on the "does he qualify or not for this label?" question rather than getting on with therapy. (Imagine if a school spent two years deciding if a child qualified for the label "gifted and talented" and forgot to actually teach the child anything in the meantime and you'll have a good idea of the worst case scenario). So assessment is necessary, but not always the same as help. Also, don't get sidetracked into dispute with family members about whether or not he "has" something - if that means avoiding any label words with them, just avoid them.

If you go to your GP and say "he doesn't seem to understand what I say, he just echos the last words of what we say" and "he can say lots of words but he doesn't really communicate" that should act like a magic wand. Get the GP to ask him some personal questions and observe that he can't answer them, and stress that it's always like this - it's not just being at the surgery.

As for what you do at home, you've started the ball rolling by ordering It Takes Two to Talk. This is like a foundation stone for the work you have to do. When it arrives, I would dedicate a month or so to really getting to grips with it and implementing the strategies so that you know that Your techniques are correct (it effectively trains you to act more like a language therapist all the time). Try to get other members of your family to look at it too (see comments above about not getting sidetracked into discussions about whether he "has" a syndrome - ITTTT can be shown safely to any family member as it uses no medical jargon and is endlessly optimistic).

Meanwhile, I would ask your library to order "More than Words" for you as well or buy it if you possibly can. "More than Words" goes deeper into communication issues than "ITTTT". "ITTTT" is written as if your child already wants to communicate. More than Words shows you what to do if the problem goes that little bit deeper. Most of the materials that describe how to help children who can say more than they understand and whose development seems to have "paused" will be in books that mention ASD. Don't wait for ASD to be ruled in or ruled out - ASD literature is the best-researched stuff for kids with these developmental delays. Every single thing you have mentioned so far will be covered in the More than Words book.

Last Recommendation for now: the misleadingly named "Teach me to Listen and Obey" DVDs (please don't be put off by the title) from a speech therapist who has an excellent website at www.teachmetotalk.com. There are shockingly few materials out there that focus on problems understanding language (or "receptive language") and this therapist is one of the few who has produced materials helping you to work systematically through receptive language issues. I would buy both DVDs. You can also email her with questions as you work through the DVDs if you don't mind the questions and answers appearing on her website.

At 3.4, my son couldn't answer choice questions or understand that "First we'll do this, then that". It took a lot of work - I'm talking at least an hour's focussed time a day plus constantly using learning opportunities as they arose - to work through the problems. It wasn't easy but it was worthwhile. I would keep bumping this thread and asking questions/running things by people/telling us what you are doing.

good luck, keep posting.

DS had full assessment of his receptive speech and it was pretty simple. I'm not saying that this would replace a professional assessment but I can tell you what they did.

They had a teddy, a stuffed lion and a doll on little chairs around a table. They had a basket with cups, different plastic food bits, plates, forks, etc.

The SaLT asked 'oh I think that Teddy is thirsty could you give him a cup of tea in the blue tea cup?" then increasingly her instructions became more complexe such as 'I think that Dolly is very hungry but she only likes peas and carrots. And she only eats from the pink plate. Could you get peas and carrots on the orange plate please, and also a cup of tea in the pink cup?" etc etc.

He also had an assessment with a Pediatrician and it was mostnly just simple questions. Such asking him to draw a streight line on a piece of paper, or get the orange trangle. But that's when he was just 3, I'm sure the assessment gets more complex as they get older. Hope it will help.

One thing theat ST does with DS is to prepare two-part stories with him (they have an image, for example, of a teddy playing football, on the first image. On the second image, teddy has kicked the ball and broke a window of the house). DS colors and cuts the images and sticks them in a little book, then he tries to explain what is going on on the images. Initially he couldn't do this at all, but now (maybe 6 months later ish) he can say simple sentences describing what is going on and what the teddy is doing.

sorry I am reading myself now and made a mistake obviously I meant 'get peas and carrots on the pink plate....

Hi lingel, thanks a lot for the advice. Agree I wouldnt like to label, just to work out best to way to help him. I have been reading up on teachmetotalk web site, very useful comments and pointers there, anyone tried their DVD? Do you recommend it ?

I have realised there is no one stop shop for this as every child is different. I am still trying figure out what works with my son. He is getting better with modelling, he has realised he gets better respone by saying "Please Mummy, can I have ... " than screaming the word. As Blueberrypancake mentioned "Give apple to teddy" never works with my son. He didnt respond to this when ST checked, but he does understand simple 2 or 3 key word sentences. Like "pls get mommys hat from the bedroom, it is on the glass table". He doesnt like to play with dolls or pretend play. he doesnt like to follow instructions esp the ones that doesnt have any purspose ( in his mind !! )

but at the same time, i think he does struggle to connect right words to the actions which need to work on - hoping ITTTT will guide us.
also hoping he will take on to some of the games.

you sound like you are already making progress.

on the labelling thing, i should just add that many of the mums who helped me most had a completely different attitude than me onlabels and fought tooth and nail to get a label. Neither approach is "right" of course, we're all just parents doing the best we can.