Language development

[Ladymisskimberley]

Hi all. I need some help/advice/reassurance!! My three year old is barely talking. He knows lots of words, animals, colours etc. but he just does not talk. I have 2 older children, one is special needs and the Hv is no help. All she seems to b interested in is carting him off to speech therapy, I don't think that will help. I think his issue is shyness. How can I encourage him to get out of his shell and speak. He has no probs following instructions and is potty trained. Has anybody else experienced this and how can I help

My dd didn't talk much at all until the week of her third birthday and then suddenly started talking much more. I can't see why seeing a speech and language therapist would be a bad idea, the slt should have experience of this I would have thought.

I did this. But turns out I was almost deaf due to bad glue ear and other ENT issues. Might be worth a quick check of hearing. I could lip read quite a bit so comprehension was good. Since he can understand try getting someone to ask to get the blue cup with their back turned while you watch him. Worth just ruling it out.

There is a book called it takes two to talk which is really good on encouraging speech. It outlines games and interactions which give children a real motivation to use words. Examples would be offering choices as much as possible and letting them finish sentences in their favourite books. It certainly helped get DD talking more. It is quite expensive to buy so you could get your local library to order it

It's a good idea to get his hearing checked, but it may be down to shyness or lack of confidence, especially with 2 older sibs - DS was slow to talk, we think because he was embarrassed about not being able to talk as well as his older sister - of course he didn't realise she's older. It may also be not needing to bother because he mostly gets what he wants without having to talk.

Do you have any alone-time with him? DS's speech has come along a lot since DD went to nursery and I have a couple of hours alone with him every morning. His confidence has really increased.

If his speech has become something you are concerned about, then your child may have picked up on that. Do you test his knowledge by asking questions like "what colour is this?" and so on? If so, try to resist the urge to do so - I know it's really hard, but honestly I do know of a child who was almost mute who gradually recovered once his mother took the listen and wait approach. Hope that helps.

A great book is "Baby Talk" by Sally Ward, available for a few pounds from good bookshops or Amazon, and seems to be in most libraries. She has several case studies of voluntary mute children.

One tip is to spend 10 minutes alone with your DS, no music or TV or radio, play on the floor, comment on what he does, encourage animal noises, any sounds, look at book with simple images and comment on the images, and if you ask him a question don't pressurise in an answer but give him time to answer.

Why don't you want a speech therapist appointment? Why do you conclude that it would not help?

I have a book somewhere called Motivate to Communicate it's been written for children with autism but really it's for children with communications difficulties. It's fun of ideas, games to play that encourage the child to want to talk.

Ds2 has a slight language delay and from 2-3 knew words but didn't chat. I would ask question and half time he understood but I only got one word answers. He's also my 'shy' one. He's 4.4 now and I can't shut him up. He still has delay but we've been doing SALT - cant hurt. They will be very familiar with this sort of thing.

Do you say "use your words" a lot of times a day? I think that's the advice they give. Trouble is a lot of kids who are a bit delayed with speech can communicate brilliantly without and then the parent/child carry on like this so speech doesn't develop (if there are no underlying issues). So, if you can break those habits, almost pretend you don't know what he wants and get him to use his words. But I would probably get him into speech therapy, can only help?