Worried about speech delay

[WelshJoB]

My lovely DS is nearly 25 months and is still not talking. He's been saying Mama and Dada for over a year, makes animal noises, brrrmmm, choochoo etc, but nothing more. He babbles constantly, and is very assertive when he does so. I'm sure he's convinced he's chatting! He also says "mama oh", "dada oh" a lot, as if getting our attention. I keep being told not to worry, but it's breaking my heart at the moment. He has great understanding, but answers all questions by pointing! Waiting for a SALT referral. DH didn't speak until 2.5yrs. Starting nursery for 1 day a week in Sept. Just need to know whats going on really so I can deal with it, and stop crying myself to sleep ...

[WelshJoB]

Thanks Captainbarnacle - the SALT team here won't even give you an appointment until you've had an audiology assessment, and we've got that on Aug 20th. I'm pretty confident it wont be an issue - DS failed his new born hearing test in 1 ear and had another assessment at 6 weeks which he passed with flying colours, so unless something has developed since then, it should be ok. Time will tell, on all levels I guess!!
x

[LeBFG]

Thanks Amiee . Just a more general question if I may (). Toddlers that simply talk later (rather than having any specific speech problem), do they catch up with peers fairly quickly once they get going?

[Amiee]

Some catch up almost over night, most will catch up at some point and a few will always need a bit of extra input.
I've seen kids progress very quickly, it's like they are on the edge and just need a little push, then all of a sudden you can't shut them up :0)

[WelshJoB]

Can I ask what's the difference between a late talker and a speech delay?? confused ...

[captainbarnacle]

Same thing?

[Amiee]

same thing in my terms.

[Lovecookies]

I'd imagine it's the same thing really WelshJoB just whichever way you want to look at it. Ones positive the other negative, speech delay just misses the deadline children get set whereas late talker is just the child growing at thier natural rate.

[ShoeWhore]

SunnyIntervals we had a very similar experience with dc3. Which is why I would always say to a worried parent to get this checked out - I lost count of the number of people who suggested I was overly anxious and that bloody Einstein didn't talk until he was 4. It really wasn't at all obvious that dc was hearing impaired. Apparently a bright child can really mask it by developing coping strategies. Thank goodness my new HV finally listened to me and that testing hearing was a standard part of the SALT referral.

Dc3 and I spent the whole of Friday just the two of us and hearing my 6 yo chatter away constantly was a bit draining utterly wonderful. I don't think a breath was drawn all day!

Oh and our audiology cons says signing is great for some children but not those with mild/moderate hearing impairment as you want them to concentrate on using the hearing they do have and look at your face to identify lip patterns.

[FrussoHathorAKADaisythecow]

OP the newborn hearing screening and the subsequent test at 6 weeks are only screenings. They pick up some, but not all types of hearing loss. Around 5% of profoundly deaf children pass the newborn screenings.

My DC failed1st, passed 2nd. And has been profoundly deaf from birth.

[Lovecookies]

Just to add, I didn't think my DD was talking at 2 at all just babble, turns out she was putting two words together asking questions like "whose that?" "What's this?" Etc we just didn't even hear it ourselves until it was pointed out to us. I guess her being our first we were looking for more clearly spoken words to come out

[ShoeWhore]

To follow on from what Frusso said, also the newborn screening tests the underlying hearing so wouldn't pick up glue ear (I think glue ear pretty unlikely in a newborn anyway but it's a different type of hearing test. Ds's underlying hearing is ace but his eardrums don't work properly thanks to the glue iyswim?)

sunny hang on in there - not sure how old your Ds is now but his vocab sounds like it's really come on? Good to hear the grommets are doing their job.

[SoulTrain]

Hi All,

I have found this post incredibly interesting, and reassuring to know I'm not alone.

DS is 26 months and says very few words, mainly babble and jargon. The words he does say tend to be mispronounced wrongly, for example he'll say "Dare" for "there." It's incredibly disheartening as really, there has been very little improvement in his speech since he was 1. We have already seen SALT who have diagnosed a severe speech delay and offered some suggestions on games (things we were doing already really) and to try signs. DS does now sign for quite a few things and whilst this eases his frustration it increases mine because the want to talk just doesn't seem to be there. SALT didn't suggest a hearing test, but reading a lot on here made me feel it was certainly something to rule out. On the surface he appears to be hearing extremely well although having read some posts like Sunny's I know excellent understanding isn't always indicative of no hearing problems. He hears planes in the distance and responds appropriately when we talk "DS, do your funny dance" cue his little jig etc. He's now having a hearing test on Wednesday although the SALT said she didn't see anything to make her think there was anything wrong with his speech. I know it sounds silly but I'd almost be relieved to know it was something like glue ear because we just aren't making any progress with his speech. I can't imagine him talking, our relationship just seems so one sided at the moment and I've even started withdrawing from our friendship group of babies the same age because I just feel so upset that he's nowhere near where he should be with his speech.

He has very good eye contact and manages to communicate his needs very well and he was late to crawl and walk but the speech is the most disheartening. He's so far behind I not only can't imagine him talking but can't imagine him catching up.

[SoulTrain]

Also, just wanted to ask his they test hearing at this age? Do they actually look in their ears? What sort of things do they do to provide a diagnosis? DS has had a bit of bad luck with his health, had an OP last year, cysts in his eyes etc so is really hesitant about doctors/hospitals etc.

[DwellsUndertheSink]

hi all, just wanted to tell you our story - we have a wee foster child who came to us with just 10 words at 2years, 4 months. Words were all nouns - mummy daddy, train, doggy etc. Had a referral to SALT but it had not yet come through.

His speech came on really rapidly using the techniques suggested by Aimee above - I am lucky in that having teenagers at home, there is always someone to talk to him, (plus i'm an experienced mum, so possibly have been there, done that).

In just a few months, he now has over 200 words. This is the age of rapid speech acquisition, so talk talk and talk some more. All the time. Nappy changing, shopping, in the car, while playing, laundry, lunch. Repetition, repetition, repetition. When we eventually saw the SALT, we realised he no longer needed them!

Keep talking to them! talk about the pictures in the books you read, be animated and use lots of facial expressions and non-verbal cues, and their speech will come on all of a sudden.

[SoulTrain]

Thanks Sunny, that's hopefully how they'll do it. Will be interesting to see what they say.

[ShoeWhore]

That's a lovely success story Dwells . I assume that most of us are talking to our dcs though! Dc2 had a vocab of 80+ words by 18 months and was putting short sentences together shortly afterwards; dc1's speech has always been ahead of so I don't think dc3's lack of language was down to lack of me talking.

Sunny I understand completely about the guilt - I have beaten myself up about this as well. You are doing better than me though if that makes you feel any better - dc3's deafness wasn't diagnosed until he was 4 I had asked nursery a few times if they thought he could hear and they thought he was fine and also my mum who has taught several deaf children didn't pick up on it either so I am trying to be kind to myself about this.

There is lots of useful information on glue ear on the NDCS website, explains hearing tests and their results really well.

We've had several sorts of hearing tests:

• tympanogram - they put a little gadget in the child's ear and it measures how much the eardrum moves and draws a graph. In a hearing person, the result looks like a shallow bell curve. With glue ear present, the result is pretty flat.
  
• testing of each ear - they put headphones on so they can test each ear individually - the child is played sounds at different volumes and frequencies and asked to do something fun in response - when ds was small it was putting little men into a boat, now he's older he has a button to press
  
• there's another test they do where they put a headset on the child on the bone behind the ear and repeat the test above - this tests their underlying hearing and so helps to determine whether the issue is glue or whether there is something more permanent going on.
  
• for the final test dc3 had, the audiologist put a load of small toys and objects in front of him and then played a recorded voice saying things like "where's the man?" and "show me the lamb" and he tried to point to the right one.
  

The audiologists are great and make it all fun - dc3 loves doing hearing tests!

[confusedofengland]

Interesting to hear these tales of hearing tests. DS2 had one hearing test back in May, which showed glue ear, and is having a second one on Wednesday so they can see if it is still present. The tests were of the 'If you hear a sound, put the monkey in the pot' variety, but DS2 did not understand what he was supposed to do, so was just merrily putting monkeys in the pot regardless (thought it was a great game ). The audiologist told me to train him up for his second test, and I have been trying, but he still doesn't seem to understand.

Does anybody know what alternative (if any) they may use in this situation? They tried the baby test on him last time, too, where if he looked at a box when a sound played, it lit up as a reward, but apparently this was too boring for him, as he didn't look at it all the time - although I did wonder if he wasn't looking at the box because he didn't hear the sounds?

In a strange way, I am hoping they will decide he needs grommets on Wednesday, because it will help either way - if he starts to talk once he has grommets, we will know this was the problem & if he does not, at least it will rule out hearing as a problem.