Am worried about DS

[crimbocrazydazy]

DS is 3 yr 7 mth and is in Nursery. He didn't start talking until he turned 3 and even now does not talk as well as the rest of the children in is class am quite worried about his speech but also have noticed he doesn't join in at the sing songs. When I pick him up all the kids are joining in and he just sits there fidgeting about in a world of his own. He's had various hearing tests and has come back fine.

It also upsets him now if I cannot understand him.

Any advice gratefully received.

Anyone...?

does he go to speech therapy? if not ask your hv to refer you. ds2 went and it did his speech (and confidence) a lot of good. kids who cant talk well cant communicate with the other kids well so it can have a big effect on them

The nursery teacher said they were going to arrange for him to have speech therapy, will have to chase them up about it.

Thanks gg

crimbo, try not to worry yet. Your DS sounds so like mine!

DS1 didn't start talking till he was almost 3 and it's only been since September when he was 3.8 when he'd talk to people at playschool and he'd been there a year!

He's seen a speach therapist who said that he's a 'reluctant talker' which means he'll only talk when he's 100% comfortable with his surroundings and the people in it. (Luckily he's coming along in leaps and bounds now except that playschool now complain that he's always saying "no, I don't want to blah blah whatever I don't want to do" type of thing).

Is your DS shy at all?

if your area is like mine then both school and hv can refer them so go through both and it may speed things up. ds was very bad when he started school and it did cause quite a lot of problems but everything is going great now, its only been a year! amazing how quickly they change at this age. good luck, im sure it will all work out fine

while you are waiting for the SALT, it might be helpful to do what we did with ds. He was also very slow to talk, much slower than his friends. It gave rise to problems in school re behaviour. The schools SENCO sugested that we only use 2 and three word sentences with him, keeping the words very short. It really helped his understanding and his speech inproved very quicly from that point onwards.

No not at all, he has 2 best mates and always befriends people very easily, unlike DD who is quite shy and eccentric. We have always compared them which was unfair really as DD could speak in sentences at 2 and I don't think we actually knew what "the norm" was.

He was in the bath the other night and was trying to tell me something and I couldn't understand him and in the end he put his head down and said "I can't talk Mummy" it really upset me.

we did lots of listening games with ds. half his problem was that he didnt really listen so he couldnt replicate the sounds. have a look on google for free game downloads like matching pairs sounds, and when you are out stop for a minute and ask him what he can hear. other than that it was a matter of practicing the sounds he struggled with, lots of flash cards with pictures and guessing games where the word begins with the sound he is practising

Don't worry, he'll suddenly get it all together and yabber like a mad man! SALT gave me handy tips too, like MB use short sentences, when he does say something if he says it wrong don't tell him it's wrong just say "good boy that's right" then say the word correctly so he can hear the correct pronunciation, use pictures as well, we printed things off the computer and played a game, making up short stories holding up a picture of say a fish then getting DS to say the word before we'd carry the story on. I found with DS we just had to make it fun to talk with praise as rewards.

There are some games on the Cbeebies website and I have tried to get him to play them but after about 1 minute he gets bored and wants to look at something else. He is the same with books, he won't let you read them to him, he only wants to look at the pictures.

Will speak to his teacher tomorrow to see how she thinks he is getting on.

Will have to try the flashcards, did you make them yourself or can you buy them?

are you sure he doesn't have hearing problems? glue ear very common at this age?

Make or buy - if you can get him to pay attention long enough get him to help you make some (until very recently DS had the attention span of frog spawn). He's just started to let us read a book with him, guess what did it? DS2 15months loves books and DS1 just wants to keep them away from him so he'll 'read' them!! Thing is now he's got started he's enjoying it, looking at the pictures with mummy and daddy and talking about what's going on.

Good point twiglett, my ds has fluid behind his ear drums and even though hospital tests came back as Ok, I was sure he couldn't hear me all of the time and this is what delayed his speach.

And there's that growth spurt thing that Steve Biddulph goes on about - how boys ear canals narrow when they have a growth spurt and so they can't always hear as well nd it's not always that they are being ignorant. Apparently this is more noticable in boys that girls.

He doesn't have glue ear or need grommets. He had his tonsils and adenoids removed last years as it was thought that this was causing the delay in his speech but was checked for glue ear and didn't have it? He might have it now though, his ears always seem to be waxy and he is always congested.

always congested will affect his hearing surely .. can you not ask for a 2nd test to be sure?

His last test was about 4 months ago and he passed with flying colours, they were really impressed.

Its the pronunciation of words he finds difficult.