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

yay, that's great.

Hello, just found the br

Sorry! Just found the thread and I'd like to join. My son is almost 18 months and I know that's still young but I've just worried myself by doing the progress checker on Talking Point and it said that I answered no to some important questions about my baby's communication development and that I should seek some help. He doesn't have any words apart from he says "nun" when he wants his dummy, and he sometimes says "whee" and "oh do" (like "oh no"). If I say to him "can you say mummy?" he says "nun" (his dummy word). Its been the same for a couple of months now. But his comprehension seems good - he understands commands eg "give mummy a kiss" and "where's the cat/teddy/bunny/playpen/your nose/teeth" and lots of other things, and points, and he understands and does the actions from his "baby can" book (eg baby can dance, baby can clap hands, baby can point). He does watch Cbeebies and follows commands on there eg "touch your nose if you want the magic to happen" he touches his nose. He also can point out and get excited by familiar things like a cat, in many contexts, eg a cat on TV, in a book, in the street. Vocally he makes noise, sometimes stringing together sounds but not actual words, and sometimes it's like he's talking another language and he varies his pitch and tone - eg the other day my husband told him not to open a cupboard and he stood his ground, finger pointed at my husband, frowned and came out with a loud stream of babble as if he was arguing back.

I was not worried about anything as I thought I'd see how he was at 2, but am now worried about the Talking Points website. The questions I answered no to were the ones about whether he has 20 words, whether he copies what we say and gesture, and whether he is doing pretend play eg pretending to be on the phone. He plays a lot but isn't very interested in play that creates things eg crayons. Whilst he doesn't really copy gesture directly he does make up his own actions eg for incey wincey spider I noticed he was doing a hand gesture every time that he hadn't been taught.

I've gone on for ages haven't i? Sorry about that.

Hello Secondsop and that's good news about appt Jay
We had Ds SALT reassessment today he wasn't able to do a lot of what she asked and she also checked what sounds he could make. She thinks he's got Dyspraxia and we have been put on another waiting list for 1 to 1 speech therapy but we wont get seen before September.
She said that its going to be a long process and if hes still not making any progress by his 3rd birthday we will have to go back to our Drs and get reffered to Nuffield as they have a specialist unit that deal with Dyspraxia!!!!
Hes 3 in Dec so I said i'll work as hard as I can to help him we have to work on 'm' and 's' sounds
At least we have got some kind of idea of whats going on but I'm still a little bit sad.
We also got appt for his eyes so I rang the hospital to explain his difficulties and they are not sure what to do as he needs to be able to communicate in the appt so I think sorting his eyes out is going to be another long process. Trying to be strong but has been a testing week and I had another cry again

skuntoo the length of time this all takes is so frustrating. I realised I was spending so much time focused on DD fretting about her, worrying about waiting times that I practically missed the fact that DS is on the cusp of crawling - up on his knees rocking! It made me realise I was getting consumed by the whole thing so I've taken a relaxing step back and am trying to chill (hate that word) but it's not easy. Sending you

secondsop your DS sounds like he's doing great but I'm no expert. But I do hate those tools on the Internet. I think the only people who should be deciding what's going on are the ones professionally trained. I have resisted the temptation to do any of those on line test things! But if you are worried your HV or GP are a good place to start

I'd love to join in too if that's ok? it has been strangely reassuring to read all your stories and recognise so much in them.

I have a nearly 3 and 1/2 year old with a speech delay, both expressive and receptive. He has been going to speech therapy for about a year (we are not in the UK) and though he hasn't caught up to his peers the gap is narrowing.

His hearing his brilliant but his speech therapist has mentioned that he might possibly have an auditory processing disorder. This can't be diagnosed till 6 or 7 though.

Sometimes I think it will all work out and just be a delay and other times my mind runs away and I get a little overwhelmed for him.

Jaybird my son was about your daughters age when we first took him to get assessed and they flagged exactly the same concerns about his imaginative play but now that is absolutely fine. In fact Captain Hook is his alter ego.

I also have an 18 month old little girl. Until I had her I think in the back of my mind I always felt my sons's speech delay was because of something I did wrong. Spoken too many words, not spoken enough...when I was pregnant I had dreadful hypermesis and my partner worked away from home for 4 months - did I ignore DS in that time and so on? Now I have DD and she is talking so easily and fluently that I realise there was nothing we did wrong, he simply has a delay.

Hi and welcome lost.
It's good to hear that your son is making progress.

jaybirds thank you for your words. My new baby is due any day now so I think what I'll do as a starting point is speak to the health visitor about my little boy when I take the new baby to the HV clinics. My boy is so lovely and expressive, just not in proper words.

Welcome lost and to secondsop good luck for your new arrival

DD is definitely making progress every day I've noticed her babbling a lot more, and as if she's trying to say words but under her breath almost. She counts DH's fingers pressing them down into his palm as she goes, previously it would have been uh uh uh for the numbers now it's more un ohhhh eeee oar iiiiiive, I'm still putting into practice everything recommended in the Hanen book. I honestly don't know if my doing those things is making a difference or if she'd be making this progress on her own, placebo effect IYSWIM, but either way it's progress! I had said to DH that we should write down the sounds she makes for the SALT assessment, thinking I'd have very little to note down but actually she makes quite a lot of different wee sounds

Oh Jay its good to hear Dd is making progress we also practised animal noises too and thanks for the virtual cake I can eat as much as that as I like!!!
Hello Lost your Ds sounds lovely how did you find speech therapy was it 1to1 ?? And its always hard not to blame yourself I know I do but then both my Dd's speech is fine too and then I tell myself not to be silly

Can I join in please?

DS2 is 17 months and I was recently told by a paediatrician (who we are seeing about his hypermobility) that he has a 'significant' speech and language delay.

He only has a couple of words (more like sounds really) - yes (yeaaa), no (ooooo), hello (awo) and some animal noises (which mostly sound the same to the untrained ear, but I can tell them apart!)

DS1 (pfb) had loads of words by this age (I kept a record ) and I have been trying not to compare them. The Paediatrician has alarmed me though! We have to go back in two months time and unless there has been a 'drastic' improvement then he will refer DS2 for SLT.

So is there anything I can be doing to encourage him to start making more speech sounds? We read together a lot, and chat and sing. He can make himself understood through some signing, gesturing, and variations of 'uh'!

He isn't great at following instructions, but I think he gets too engrossed in his play and doesn't really listen (not overly concerned about his hearing as if I whisper 'DS2 would you like a biscuit' while standing behind him, he will say 'yea' and come shuffling over quick as a wink!)

Hi beans welcome to the thread.
I was the same with comparing as dd was talking in sentences by 18 months. It's hard not to compare!
Maybe it help your DS a focus on the mouth muscles may be good at this stage. So lots of things like blowing bubbles, using straws, blowing whistles/recorders, blowing a ball with a straw, using a mirror to see what the mouth looks like when making sounds etc. They did a lot of this kind of stuff with DS in the early stages before they started to focus on his sounds.
It's good you are getting help early. I was fobbed off a lot when DS was younger and was told he wouldn't have hog therapy before the age of four anyway.

Can I join in too.

I have a DS who is four years age. But only says 10 words, even though his receptive skills are good. He recently has a diagnosis of autism, but now considering if he may have brain damage and been referred for an MRI scan.

Great advice, thank you jelly. DS2 loves bubbles, so I will start encouraging him to blow them himself. He is great with a straw and uses one regularly.

Hi andrianna and welcome. It must be a worry for you.

Just back from DD's SALT assessment. If I'm honest it felt like a bit of a waste of time. As she is only saying a few words there's no real intervention they can do at this stage. The SALT was very nice and I asked her a lot of questions about things I had been wondering about. But she couldn't really offer us anything over and above what we already know. She gave me an activity sheet to work on with DD 90% of which I am already doing. We also have a list of 'first words' that she should be saying to concentrate on those.

So we plough on doing what we are doing and she'll see us again in 3 months time. Dunno I thought she'd wave her magic speech therapy wand and have something wonderful and inspiring to tell us! And of course DD cooperated with a bit of what the SALT asked her but for the majority of it she just wanted to play with the giant box of toys in the corner of the room, but what 2yr old wouldn't??

I guess it is good, as DH said a lot of parents may have gone to that appointment having done nothing so far. But I guess I expected her to say she'd see us every couple of weeks or something, I dunno. The last private SALT I spoke to didn't fill me full of confidence!

She is starting settling in days with nursery next week and I'm hoping that the environment of nursery will help her. I will also continue to do what I'm doing and will see where we are at in 3 months. I'm back to work in a fortnight so 3 months will fly by (I hope).

Thanks madrigals I will have a look, what age was your LO when you went down the private SALT route? forgive me if you've already posted this but DS thinks 4.30 is a good time to start the day at the mo, so I'm not on full cylinders

Yes full time I requested part time hours and was told no, but that it will remain under review.......

Checking in so I can find this thread later - my DC3 is almost two and says uh-oh, that's it, no babble, so I'll be back for a good read once I've shipped them all to bed!

Welcome grumpyredhead

DD had her first settling in day at nursery today and she did great Hopefully more of the same tomorrow. She is a complete expert now at saying 'no' and although she has attempted a few other words 'no' is definitely her clear favourite followed closely by 'duck' but no new words in the last week, the girls at nursery tell me she was joining in with head & shoulders actions and all - she will not do this for me at home, wee rascal