Support thread for speech and laguage delay toddlers...

[Orangeflower7]

Hi, I have a little boy of 2.5 and we have just today had our first speech and language referral appointment as he is not saying many words yet. I thought maybe other parents might be in the same position and would like to share experiences for support?

It took a few weeks for the appointment, which we were referred to by the health visitor. The therapist told us he has a moderate language delay and has given us ideas of some signs to use with him, she has advised us to keep language clear and simple and we will get a place at a toddler group run by speech and language therapists who will observe and support us. Not sure how long that will take as they only have 6 children in a group but there is an option we can go to the next town if necessary. He also had his hearing tested by the hospital audiologist last week and they said his hearing was fine.

Meant to say DD will not see SALT again for another six MONTHS.

hi everyone. I have just started a course based on It Takes two to talk, the Hanen course. Already, i have picked up on one or two strategies and I can see how it may help.
Wanted to ask how other people's nurseries support their children - DD's keyworker is lovely but relatively inexperienced. the SALT has offered to go in but has not yet. I feel it is all very well that I can try out the techniques but DD spends 5 days a week with them!

This is my concern too. DD's nursery teacher is very keen to support DD with her speech and social skills but we have such an inadequate SALT that we both feel a bit stuck with how to help her. I feel the nursery teacher is hanging on the report we are waiting for from SALT in order that she can implement the strategies suggested.
Unfortunately I have been through 2 SALT reports already which only served to highlight the issues with DD we already know. There was little if any practical help hence why I have ordered the It Takes Two To Talk book.
My DD is an August born and starts Reception in less than a year. Time is slipping by and I am panicking. I have to be pro-active DD's sake.

Thankyou Arrogantcat for responding. My GS has just started nursery 2 afternoons a week and is loving it according to the staff. He plays with lots of different things (although cars are his main interest!) He won't sit with the others at snack time and hasn't as yet eaten anything but they will keep offering him some. Today he was seeming to say 'oh no' quite a few times so we were ecstatic ha ha. My main concern is him being labelled with a condition when he could simply be a late developer. Of course we will take on board any tips the SALT people recommend and I will definately order the It Takes Two To Talk book. Thanks again and best wishes to you and your family..

Thank you. I meant to add that your GS is still very young. There is every chance that nursery will really bring him on with his speaking. Try and think of the referral as just part of the process to help him. There is every hope he'll be chattering away soon. My eldest DC had an explosion of speech between the ages of 2 and 2.5.
Good luck.

Babs - the other thing I've recommended before is a DVD called Sookie & Finn, made by a company who use SALTs. You can order it off the internet. It's a nice cartoon story of the day in a life of two little ones with sections repeating words. Its aimed at increasing vocabulary - both my DCs enjoy it.

Olivio - how did you find out about the Hanen course you are on? I think it would be great to know more about applying the strategies from the It take Two to Talk book. I try my best with DD but I still think I must do it in a pressurisng way because it seems like she is prepared to speak more when I'm not really thinking about it and sometimes seems to clam up otherwise. Also my DD's nursery do not really seem to be helping much. They just say my DD is shy and doesn't speak which I already know!

ArrogantCat - sorry that everything seems to be taking ages for you and your DD. We too are in London and have not even seen the NHS SALT assessment people yet. I self referred DD after speaking to a HV and we have been sent a letter saying she would hopefully be assessed in about 12 weeks but have heard nothing since. It's very poor when you read so much about early intervention being important. I hope you receive your next report quickly - is there a chance that it could lead to your DD being offered some group/weekly sessions with a SALT?

I have heard about group sessions with SALT and think DD would benefit from attending one. Thanks Soozbie. I will definately bring it up with the SALT when I attempt (again) to speak to her on Monday. She's been on holiday all week (fair enough) but the outstanding report she made on DD is important to us and the nursery. She was assessed at the start of the term and as we approach half-term, still no report.

The provision of SALT in some areas seems appalling. I am fed up of people telling me she'll catch up and that I am worrying unnecessarily.
That it is "just" speech delay. There's no "just" about it. angry

Sorry for the moaning. I am really fustrated by the whole process.

Loads of us seem to be in London - is it totally inappropraite to suggest a meet up? I am wondering if sharing experience, having the opportunity to hang out with others in the same position, and offer mutual support might be helpful? Or is suggesting this kind of thing considered totally inappropriate?!

Cjn, sounds like a good idea to me.

I am lucky enough to be able to afford private SALT, and had a good session yesterday, thought I might pass on a tip, which was that she video taped some interactions between me and DS and then we played them back slowly with lots of pausing and looked at what I was doing, what I could be doing more of etc. Maybe other people could just do this themselves, even if you can't have a SALT come round to the house like we do, it did seem pretty helpful, especially when combined with knowing Two to Talk techniques, from the book.

I have to say that it was nice watching the video, I realised that DS is paying some attention, responding to what I am telling him/asking him to do etc (not with speech per se but with gestures, following where I point etc). I often get very discouraged when I spend time trying to do SALT techniques with him and I feel like I am getting nowhere.

Arrogantcat, there is an Independent SALT called Keena Cummins who is based in Greenwich and who runs Parent Child Interaction Therapy courses using video - if you look on her website she has some great 'top tips' for parents and also offers parent workshops for £10. I don't know what these involve but it may be worth looking into (I am not her by the way in case any one think I am advertising!).

Thank you Kate. That's really helpful. We are in the Greenwich borough. Will certainly check her website out. smile

doh..

soozbe, I was offered the course by the SALT who assessed DD. It is run by one of the senior SALTs. i have only done a couple of sessions so far, but can see how it might help. I dont always have the time to apply the strategies but have spent some time on my own with DD on her ow nthis weekend, and can see how waiting for her to lead the conversation is benfeficial.
Session 4 is individual videoing, so i am looking forward to seeing where i am going wrong and could do it better. I feel guilty when at the course though, as I appear to be the only one using full time child care.

Hi everyone. I could have cried as I read through some of these posts. I have a de who is 3next week. He has seen a private salt since Jan this year we have only just seen NBA one after waiting almost a year. Private salt reassured us he wasn't asd only thing he has been delayed is his speech and language. After the frustration we use makaton and it has helped. The words are coming .it is long slow process. I too get so upset when his peers are chattetboxes. I have had sleepless nights about his future . He is trying sol hard. Will post bit more about us later as other dd is poorly. I am really tearful but reassured that I am not the only one.

Hello, I'd like to join this thread. DS is 2.2 and has about 7 words. We've had the initial assessment by SALT who agreed he was delayed but didn't think there was any underlying problem. We're on the waiting list for a clinic.

DS has been slow from birth - slow to smile, to focus, roll over, slow at things like clapping and waving. He does it in the end, just seems to take time to get there. He's been seen by various people (CDC, physio etc.) for these things and was given the all clear on everything at 18 months. So we had six months of respite but by 2, he wasn't speaking so it was back to the GP. He's picked up his 7 or so words in the last two months.

I am so, so tired of worrying that there's something up. On good days, I think he's fine, just a slow and cautious type personality. On bad days, I feel this all must amount to there being something wrong.

Hi, I had another thread going about one particular meeting with a health visitor but my DS is 28months with only 2 words so far. Reading all the above I am thinking that maybe we are lucky - I self referred back in July to SALT. Finally got a meeting with them two weeks ago and have his first SALT session for one hour this coming Monday. I think this is another assessment and then she will sign us up for a series of sessions.
i have also signed up for a course called Communicate Together which we were also referred to - it only operates in Brighton and Hove (my location) and Warrington. Its a charity and its free.
Hope that will help too - its for the parents to learn the skills/methods to use at home. I hope it isnt patronising.
I think it will useful as DS doesnt always engage with new people straight away (do any kids?) - which is the rubbish reason that the original early years health visitor seemed to be so negative about him.
It has been a really stressful and worrying time and hoping that we are now on track.
I have just received the hanen book and also ordered some play cards from Amazon from the ican people - a selection of activities to do with LO to encourage speech (but they are not teachy teachy).
sookie and finn is great (don't expect disney quality animation!-) we use a lot of the phrases from it - but our DS is obsessed with watching dvds - he can watch a whole film and seem to follow the storyline and the emotions etc - but we are really trying to keep his tv time to minimum so its hard to know if the benefits outweigh the disadvantages.

we are trying really hard to help him and make it fun at the same time.
I nearly cried at the weekend when he said 'Go!' at the top of his slide with such strength and conviction he was saying the right thing. I could tell he was pleased as punch with himself.

a bit of a ramble - but thought I'd join in!! :)

Can I join this thread? I took my DS (2 and nearly 3 months) to a health visitor today. He has very few words.Apart from "thank you", "all gone," and mama/dada - that's it. He babbles a lot but it's all incoherent.
TBH, it's not just the lack of speech that is killing us - his sleeping is awful. He doesn't go to bed till at least 10pm only has 30 mins nap during the day, and it takes ages to settle him at night - can be up to 2 hours. Even when he does go down, he's starting to wake up in the middle of the night and stay awake for hours. I know speech and sleep are separate issues, and I can't make him into a child who needs 12 hours a day, but if I could just reason with him it would be that bit easier.
The tantrums are unreal at the moment, and while I know he's at that age anyway, I do think the lack of speech is making them worse.

We're being referred to an audiologist just to check his hearing (I think it's ok, but deafness does run in both families so it's no harm), and we're being referred to a speech therapist. Also, a nursery nurse will come out and assess the sleeping.
I'm so glad I went - I was anticipating a dressing down saying I'm a weak minded idiot who is letting her child rule the roost yada yada yada, but she was lovely.

I'm nearly 18 weeks pregnant, we both work full time, (albeit I do my hours over 4 days), I've just been given more responsibilities at work, and this is killing us. We seem to have no quality of life at the moment, and even at weekends we always seem too tired to really do anything with DS now.

I know it's stupid to compare your child with others, but we met up with friends of DH at the weekend. Their daughter is only 7 weeks older than DS, and while I've known for a while DS is behind, it was a shock to hear how much some kids are saying.

Hopefully it will work out. My brother cost my parents a fortune in speech therapy and now works as a DJ, so it could be just a family thing.

Hi to the new people on the thread. MILF I know what you mean about seeing other kids and comparing, it is so difficult. I am finding the slowness of progress, even with weekly speech therapy and lots of hard work from all of us in the home, to be so very hard to cope with. It seems to me, especially when I am lying awake worrying at 4am, that he is not going to talk and we have to accept that. I just find it awful however to think that I will never hear my little boy saying "mummy" to me. How can one come to terms with that? My DS has had one new word in two months ("eye", and only said in response to my singing a rhyme about the parts of the face, not ever spontaneously. And I don't know if he actually knows the meaning or is just echoing). Tantrums...oh yes. They are getting difficult too, anyone else getting a lot of high pitched screeching? My DS is doing this whenever he can't get what he wants. It is very exhausting, makes you feel just terrible and is hard to stop.

Rocket one of my DS's (very few) words is also GO, although once again he will only say it if we say it first. I know what you mean too about him not engaging with new people at first. My DS has developed a habit of standing on his head when he is not quite sure what to do, like when a new person is in his environment. It makes him seem rather odd and can be a bit embarrassing!. He will stop once he knows someone or familiarises himself with what is going on. But it does take him a while to warm up to new people.

We had a terrible phase of biting from about 18 months till 26 months (drawing blood etc...). We didn't ever have tantrums. However, as time goes on and progress is slowly made the biting did stop in the end. While he still wasn't talking much when it stopped, he was signing. I think it was probably frustration related, and must admit I found it really hard to like my child when covered in bites and bruises. However, we're back in a good place and progress slowly continues.

One thing I've noticed is DS (who is now just 3) learns phrases, but the individual words aren't then put together in other forms. For example, he can now say 'I want .... please'. But he can't say 'I' in any other sentence. The more I watch how he learns language the more I realise many concepts (such as I / me / mine) are totally lost on him.

He's also now had grommets, but his pronounciation is still pretty wonky (though due to massive infections we're not quite sure where his hearing is up to). Looking at him talking I've also noticed something pretty funny going on with his tongue. It seems to be much more visible than other kids and almost clumsy (if that makes any sense).

We're pretty sure now glue ear is not the full picture, but can't work out what is. Still waiting to see the Genetic Councellor about his chromosome mutation. Not sure what that will tell us as no one else in the world is recorded as having the mutation DS has.

On it goes. All very confusing. Everytime someone gives you a bit more information it feels like you've just got more questions?! Meanwhile, the NHS is sending us around the twist. DS is now under 5 different PCTs (5 different London hospitals), and that's not including the private people we've gone to when totally frustated with lack of progress within the NHS. Sometimes I feel like I have a part time job being his NHS advocate just chasing reports, appointments, and making sure each of the many healthcare professionals has got copies of everything.

Oh dear, that was a long grumble. Some days are definately better than others.

Hi i've just found this thread and i've found it very interesting. Last night we went to our DS 4.2 1st parents evening (august baby) and even though she is very happy with him in all areas, she has given us a form to fill in to see a SALT as she struggles to understand him sometimes and he doesn't talk in complete sentences.

He has always been a little slow and it wasn't until he went to nursery when he was 3 that we started to see him improve. I wasn't really concerned until this was mentioned and i'm now finding myself analyse everything he says.

He is a physical boy and has made lots of friends, knows his numbers and is embracing the phonics system they have started learning. I understand what he says most of the time but he does miss the odd word and sometimes tries to rush what he says.

Sounds like we could be in for a long wait to see anyone from what i've read above but what could we expect them to check?

scarthy1975 your wait will depend on where you live. Where we are it's dreadful - we've been waiting since Jan and so far had an assessment and a review. Seems like the NHS likes to tell you what's wrong and do nothing about it?!? However, there are other areas that are so much better. It's a bit of a postcode lottery.

Hello to those that have just joined the thread - Rocket74, Balsam, MILFintraining remember that your LOs are still very young. There does seem to be a massive increase for some in the acquiring of language between 2 and 3 - especially for boys. So they could well just be late developers. But I know that the comparison issue is unavoidable I think and has certainly had me worrying for the last year or so.

My DD is 3 in a couple of weeks - she has just started sessions with a SALT (not NHS - we are still on the wait to be seen 4 months after referring her) who thinks her speech is more like a 2 and a bit year olds. Her pronunciation is still very poor as well as her having limited vocab. One point which I thought I would pass on - she sometimes holds things up and says "wassat?" (she was holding a plastic fish). I usually try to get her to say "fish" because I know she can make an attempt at it but the SALT said just to tell her the word because the more she hears the word the more comfortable she will be at just saying it. I suppose I inherently try to "test" her sometimes to get her to say more but it's better just to surround her with language and then "model" sentences for her when she makes an attempt to say something.
Sorry if this is a bit rambling - just wanted to pass on a tip in case it helps anyone.

Hope everyone has a nice weekend. My DH is good at reminding me that it's important to actually enjoy time with our LOs as opposed to spending all the time worrying!

If anyone wants to hear good news then we have had an extremely positive experience with NHS SALT (the only area of the NHS we have been pleased with, the rest has been horrendous for us).

We had 18 months of blocks of 1 to 1 for 6 weeks at at time from age 2 and a half to 4. Now been discharged with another year to go till starting school.

I pushed and pushed for help once we were referred and was lucky that older siblings speech was several years ahead of age so HV was concerned at 2 year check and referred despite the fact that you shouldnt compare siblings but in our case it worked to our advantage.

I think we were lucky or perhaps the speech therapist liked giving him sessions because he tried hard and was so happy during them and was a success for her as making progress. I did the exercises daily during the 18 months which may have helped. It was mainly him listening to me saying the words correctly or me getting a puppet to say some correctly and some incorrectly and him having to say if it was right or wrong. As previous posters said I was advised not to get him to correct himself and lose confidence and always followed this and just resaid the word correctly without telling him no.

Another great success we had was he could not say any 2 syllable words when we started and we started to tap or clap out each syllable and within a week he had the concept of multi syllables. Would really recommend this exercise. That was our biggest progress and all other progress seemed slow compared but still a success.

I think ours was due to glue ear which appears to be correcting itself without grommets and also family history but we were lucky that it only affected pronounciation and not understanding or vocab etc so much easier to correct.

HTH

Hi
How is everyone doing? Thought I would resurrect this thread so it doesn't die away.

Thedudesmummy - our DSs sound very similar! My DS, now 2.2, had grommets and an adenoidectomy last month. He had a follow-up test this morning and his hearing is now normal range, which is a relief. No noticeable difference in his speech however and there seems to be no real attempt to speak.

He says dada, nana, narna (banana), mum (occasionally, but not to me) and owl (for some reason), plus a few animal and vehicle noises. That's all though. He's about to move up rooms in nursery which I hope will help, with far chattier kids and new challenges.

We're now looking into the next step: Makaton (via Justin of course) and speech therapy, but am not sure how it will work out as attention span is very limited at present!

Anyway, that's us. It was soul-destroying being with DSs neighbour earlier in the week, who is 4 months younger than him and saying plenty. :(