Support thread for speech and language delay.......

[jaybirdsinginginthedeadofnight]

I know this has been done before on here, but I couldn't find anything recent and am sure there is someone out there going through similar worries to us. So if you want to share your experiences/worries come join me

DD turns 2 in 2 weeks and has no words, not one! She babbles constantly and has added new 'c' 's' and 'th' sounds to her babbling in the last week. Her understanding seems good and she has her own way of letting us know what she wants (point & whinge a lot). She will have her 2 year assessment next week, I intend on broaching the subject of SALT.

I am sooooo anxious about all of this. DD's cousin is 6months older, and as her speech has developed well she seems leaps and bounds ahead of DD

My DD is 2.3 and I reckon she now has only about 20words 'kick' was a new one today as she was booting a ball about the garden. She doesn't seem interested in talking with us either, which is really frustrating. As you said she will comment on stuff she's interested in, but the rest of the time I get lots of babble and noises through closed mouth.

I think sometimes encouraging a child to talk is a thankless task as it is a slow process when it comes to seeing results. I spent ages making a photo book of all our family and DD's favourite things, this hasn't encouraged her to say any of the things in the book it has just made her obsessed with photos

Do you have the Hannen book 'it takes two to talk' it is great in giving you ideas on what to do but a lot of it you'll probably be doing anyway. It advises to talk in short simple sentences, talk about stuff he's interested in. Repeating a key word like say he points for a drink then you use the word water (or whatever he wants) at least 5 times emphasising the key word - you want water DS, you like water, mmmmm nice cold water etc etc Giving choices is good too, to try and encourage them to answer you, between two items what do you want DS a yoghurt or a banana etc Like I said a lot of it is common sense.

Just keep at it, and keep talking. I found the bee bright DVD's really good and Oxbridge baby learn to talk, not that DD watches these all the time but once or twice a week I'll switch one of them on

So DD's SALT rang today to say she'd a cancellation for her review. I totalled up the words she has now and I reckon she's averaging 30, but still not very verbal at home with me and DH. I've a feeling she will not speak in her SALT session either, but we'll see, it's next week

That's good news, hope it goes well.

Hi, I think this thread has lost it's legs . So I just wanted to sign off with a final update. DD's review went well she has made great progress in the last three months, she did everything that was asked of her, and even showed imaginative play skills. She didn't speak a lot to the SALT, but we had a list of her words with us and her report from nursery. The conclusion of the appointment being she does not need any intervention from the developmental team, and she will have a further SALT review in another 3 months. We are so happy and so proud of her!

This thread has been great in giving me somewhere to discuss all this and I hope anyone who joined along the way has benefited too. Happy talking everyone and remember the wise speak because they have something to say, a fool speaks because they have to say something

Bye

Hi Jay,
I am really glad your DD's appointment went so well, sounds like you've both done a great job.
I will keep a check in the thread to see how the LO's are doing so do pop back on with any updates.
We are going to go along the the appointment we've been sent next week and see what they say as I'd rather it was them discharging DS than me saying he doesn't need it anymore.
Good luck you you and your dd

Talking about getting to the other side, it takes a lot of guts to accept what you are going through and acknowledging that with your support the child is able to find the confidence to learn as any other child. I know a child who went through an hearing dely assessment and had her primary carer changed before the assessment was completed. The child further changed her school and now she is getting really good grades but her health is really bad, I guess it is a learning process for all of us when the cure is further aggrevating the situation rather then helping. The poor girl the situation is so bad for her that she is finding it really hard to cope and by this time everyone is at their wits end.
Someone then found the time to go to the doctor and get a medical diagnosis, she is now with her mom and her dad visits on and off getting better the school got carried away with it and started accusing the mother of child abuse. They have now backed off and allowed the mother to look after her.

Oh btw the summer contact was missed altogether and no further date has been given

Another update from us. Took DS long for the first session of his block today. She did an assessment and straight away said she was happy to discharge him, he has a few minor issues but all age appropriate. So now it's official - no more Speech Therapy for us!! So pleased and proud if DS! Xx.

A update from us as well.
Ds has about 6 words now and we have an appt with Paed on Fri. She last saw him 6 months ago and although we've made some progress socially we still have a long way and other issues have cropped up too so this is gonna be a bumpy road for us. Im so pleased that everyones Dcs have made progress best wishes to u all and I will miss this thread

jelly that's fantastic news! *skuntoo keep your chin up! I will still check in here from time to time coz lets face it I'm too nosey not too So please keep the thread going if you want to...........

Thank u jay Xxx

skuntoo hang in there. It was a long and bumpy rude for us too but we are proof that you can do it and when it starts falling into place, it's so worth it.

I did chech this thread time to time too. My daughter did an assessment in July, the doctor said she has social delayed as well, her social delayed almost 1 year behind? she refuses to interaction with others apart from the family.

Update for anyone reading.
We saw Paed which was interesting!!! We told her our concerns and mentioned that Speech Therapists thinks it might be Verbal Dyspraxia and she was a bit off hand saying that theres nothing mentioned in the report and that she would talk to Therapist. She mentioned about his birth marks and said she would run some blood work and would see us in 6 months.

Got the report and shes running chromosome tests as well as other blood tests and she thinks it might not be an isolated speech problem so maybe she's had a rethink

Had our first 1to1 speech therapy and I told Therapist about Paed wanting to speak to her and she told me she already had and has put the Paed straight don't worry!!! also told us we need to go to G.p a month before his 3rd birthday (November) because we will need to be referred to Nuffield Hospital to the Dyspraxic team!!! Shes going to help us with his signing as he needs to be doing a 2 sign sentence and work on sounds.

So I think we are making a bit of progress but its going to be a lot of hard work XXX

Hi there. Sounds like you have a good speech therapist there so that's great news! It's so good to have someone on your side.
Glad some progress is being made for you and hope it continues that way.

Bump for sallysizzle

I have a DS who's 2.1 and not really saying 'proper' words yet. He is making sounds, but seems to really struggle with consonants (so 'ain' for 'train' etc). He doesn't seem to have a problem understanding and is happy interacting with strangers. If we ask him what a cow says he goes 'oooo' and for a sheep will say 'aaaa', and he can understand when we ask him to do simple things like getting his shoes.

We haven't been referred for SALT yet (haven't really spoken to any professionals yet at all ) but I assume that we'll probably need to go down that route. Are there any tips for introducing and developing more consonant sounds? He can make a 'm' sound for instance but doesn't link to other sounds to make say 'mooo'.

Hiya. Being aware of the mouth shape when making different sounds can help. You can use a small mirror and get your DS to copy your mouth shape and look in the mirror at what he looks like doing it.
As he is very young still my advise would be to be lots of oral muscle building activities, so things like blowing bubbles, using straws, blowing whistles, recorders etc, making silly faces etc.
Also don't worry about consonant clusters (cr,tr,st, sp etc) these come much later anyway. My dd who had no speech problems (in fact had great speech) said pider instead of spider for ages!!
Hope that helps.

I hope you don't mind me crashing in. This thread was recommended to me.

My youngest is just 27 months old and recently failed her two year check.

She has passed her hearing test (second attempt) and has good hearing.

Comm Paed reported that she has a speech and language delay and behavioural difficulties and referred her to SALT.

So we are awaiting her SALT appointment and wondering what we should be doing in the meantime.

The audiologist consultant recommended we watch something special and encourage her to add to her signs (currently uses sleep, please, thank you and all gone)

DD3 verbally says a few words....Mummy, daddy, no, uce (juice), eep (sleep), nana (banana), down, sho (shoes), key abd a couple more.

Just looking for advice, I guess. Will she catch up before she starts nursery when she is 3 yo ?

Bump

Hi babieseverywhere didn't want to just read & run, but we are mid bedtime in our house, I'll come back to you later

My DS will be 3 in Dec and we have a Dr appt the end of this month to get referred to Nuffield. He has about 15 words but majority of them u wouldn't understand unless he signed at the same time. We Makaton sign with him and it has been a great help. Our Nhs speech therapist has been fantastic and we are working on a 2 sign sentence and when prompted we can get him to say 2 words together.
I'm worried about Nursery as at the moment he's in a Children centre and there is only 7 children in his group as when he starts school their will be about 25.

Hiya,
How is her understanding? Does she understand the things you say to her, follow simple instructions etc?
My little one had a speech disorder which was severe. He understood everything and would 'talk' but little could be understood. He had NHS and private speech therapy and has now been discharged with 'age related' speech and is doing great at school.
We didn't use signing at all so don't know much about that but the website www.talkingpoint.org.uk might have some useful info.

babieseverywhere what behavioural difficulties does your DD have? Any issues my DD has had all seemed to right themselves as her speech progresses. She is now 2.7 and although she has made great progress is still behind her peers.

To be honest thus far I haven't had a great experience of NHS SALT, I feel they haven't done a lot other than assess her. I am grateful for this though as their assessment has reached the conclusion that she doesn't require any intervention on any other level, just speech. IMHO the best thing for her was going to nursery, this has brought her on leaps and bounds in her speech and social interaction.

In the meantime I guess you are probably doing everything you should be doing. There is a book 'it takes two to talk' which is good, but expensive, see if you can source it from a library. Most of it is common sense. Things like modelling back words to them they are trying to say, using repetition of a key word, so if DD try's to say water (currently wa-wa for us) I will say back to her 'water, you would like water, nice cold water, water to drink?' you get the idea? The book also stressed the importance of pausing and allowing your LO to get a chance to talk. Engaging them in stuff they are interested in will encourage their speech too. But like I say you probably do a lot of this anyway

I found the bee bright DVD's very good so have a look at those, something special was recommended to me too, but DD would not watch it, however she loves bee bright (same guy who does something special).

I made DD a scrap book of photos of family, and her favourite things, printed out the words in big bold letters, she loves that book and can now say the word for every item in it, well apart from mummy, she has trouble with M's so I'm Noggy .

If I think of anything else I'll come back to you. HTH