Did anyone have a child with limited understanding at 18-20 months?

[mscongeniality]

My son had an appointment with a Paediatrician yesterday due to his lack of speech at almost 20 months and she thinks its better to get him early intervention now rather than later.

My bigger concern is that he doesn't seem to understand or respond to simple tasks and commands either so his language can't progress until he starts understanding it.

I'm just wondering if anyone had an 18-20 month child who had limited understanding but started progressing later?

Hi mscongeniality
Thank u very much for ur post in my thread. I was wondering whether ur son does sweat a lot at night? My DS head get wet due to sweat even in this winter . In the night time he wake up 5/6 times as his head is totally wet and feel very discomfort.

U said u have received the pead report? Is it blood test report? Or just pead observation report.

My DS blood test and chromosome test has been done and it says will take 6/8 weeks to get the result. Have they done these test for ur DS? What was the result of the test.

I guess u just received pead observation report as u saw her only two weeks time. So don't worry too much. We saw pead on 26th November but still waiting for pead report.

Hi coffeemachine
May I know how old is ur DD now? How is she doing in everyday life. Can see talk or understand instruction now? Does she go to school? Is it mainstream school? How is she doing in school.

I know I made lot of question to u. Just want to be assured my son will lead normal life in case an autism. Very sorry for many ques . Thanks

Hi Chhalma
My son is 5 now, he has started school. His problems are very concentrated on communication. He has some language, and is understanding more and more every day. He is delayed compared to his peers, but compared to himself he is developing every day. His issues with speech is more that he doesnt feel motivated to use conversation. So he has a lot of language, but he doesnt necessarily feel the need to share it in the way most people do. He is now in mainstream school but has full time 1:1 help. He is managing very well. How he will manage in the future? I dont know. Its scary so I try to concentrate on the now.
I found the period you are in, when my son was around two and we started going to the paediatrician, very difficult and emotional. If you do get a diagnosis of some kind, it does get easied over time.

She is 8, talks (more like a 4 year old), understands (more like a 4 year old), in mainstream with 1:1 but will need specialist provision latest at secondary. She is happy healthy, sporty and lovely. yes, autism some times gets in the way of things but overall we are fine and happy.

you are at the most difficult stage right now. Nobody will be able to tell you which way things will go. But even if it is Asd, it is not the end of the world. it really isn't .

Hi everyone
Today we have received the pead report. It says

1. Significant global developmental delay
2. Significant speech and language delay
3. Special communication difficulties

I appreciate things have moved on but, my DS (premature) had no words until 22 months. His hearing was fine. He started talking just before turning two.
At 5 school say his vocabulary is very good. He also has an astounding capacity to ignore people when he's busy. He just doesn't really take anyone seriously
My db was the same apparently and I appear to have married a man with selective hearing too.
At 20 months DS made noises that I understood but he. didn't say Mummy until well past 2.

global developmental delay is a hhorrid term, op.
our son was dx with that as a young toddler. he had focal seizures. and a speech delay. didn't really talk in sentences til he was 5. he received intensive speech therapy privately and that was the best thing we ever did for him.

if u go nhs keep pushing for help. even better if u can, go private. salt s are amazing. the job they do is massive. helping children and adults learn to speak, listen, comprehend so that thwu can communicate with society as best theu can.

our ds is fully verbal and in mainstream education. if it wasnt for early intervention he would not have the quality of life he now has
advicate for your child and get him as much help as you can.
good luck!

advocate, even.

DD had global developmental delay, with no obvious cause. Was born at 35 weeks. She had speech & language therapy and physio, and extra help at school in reception & Year 1. By age 9 she was mostly caught up and scored above average in her Year 6 tests. She is now 12, and the delays are unnoticeable to most people (slight speech immaturity and slight delay in large motor skills).

Hi citycheck

I have no idea about SALT. Where should I get private service of Salt. How much are they charge? We are not wealthy but struggling to live in a small one bed flat with two children. but want to do my best even one session.

chhalma

you need to apply for DLA. Get the cerebra guide for DLA (Google it, it's online) and/or get help in completing it (cab, local be edits advisors etc).

private Salt is expensive but you can find private salts here:
www.helpwithtalking.com/Default.aspx

Salt did next to nothing for my DD though. We had more suscess with Aba. Dd never caught up though (she has severe learnning diffs as well so it would not be realistic to expect a catch up).

Hi coffeehouse
What is Aba and we can get this service? Pead refered for SALT . Don't know how long it will take to start the Salt service? Is anyone has any idea how long need to wait to get SaLt service? Do I need to communicate or they will communicate us? Thanks all fur your help and support.

Take a look at Caudwell children charity, they fund £2000 per year and cerebra fund £600 Slt.

hi chhalma
so now you have your 3 point dx what do yhe professionals recomme d and hiw quickly can they refer you and your dc?
coffeemachine has good suggestions.
with the local nhs it's a lottery as to who gets attention and who does not.
our ds got absolutely.nothing from nhs. we got a hearing test (fine), occupational therapy check up (no further treatment required) and an autism test. the two way mirror test. ( tested negative for asd).
our local early years centre gave him 2 salt sessions, lost his notes, failed to organise further sessions even after i pushed for more. they were hopeless.
i had no choice but private. we went on a personal recommedation .
for almost 3 years we attended salt every week. it was expensive and there were no holidays but i hate to think what the alternative might have been. we invested our lives in it almost. homework ~ play based of course and endless visual aides all over the house .
the more you put in the more you and your child will reap the rewards, even of your son does not catch up completely.
please don't sit around too long and wait.
in my experience the ability the services have to diagnose conditions are far greater than the ability they have to support those diagnoses.
which means you have to fight for every service your child needs.
i do not have experience of Aba either so cannot help with that
good luck x

ABA - applied behavioural analysis. lots of info online. and no, not available on the NHS.

DD has severe ASD, severe s&l day, severe learning diffs. over the years we had abkyt 10 sessions of salt and 2 sessions OT on the Nhs. so next to nothing. NHS is a huge let down for children like Dd. they are not 'fixable', hence no resources.

We use DLA to fund stuff privately.

If you have private medical insurance that covers the children that will normally cover speech therapy. My dd had a physical throat problem and had 6 months of salt privately paid for by private medical and it cured it. As soon as the throats problem was identified, we called the insurer she saw consultant the next week started salt the following week. Reviewed by consultant and signed off after six months. We only had to pay £100 excess for all that. The salt sessions were £70 per time and she went twice per week.
Check your insurance.

mould not always. I had Bupa back then and anything developmental for children was not covered (incl SALT).

chhalma,

if your financial resources are limited, it may still be helpful to see a salt privately at least once. They should be able to give you lots of strategies in terms of communication. Salt often works like that anyways - you need to do the lionshare of the work at home with strategies provided by Salt.

also, the following books are really good:

it takes two
&
more than words

both are by Hanen.

coffeemachine
in our area it was the children who weren't "fixable" who seemed to get seen more quickly. also those from very poor backgrounds.
we are not on benefits if any kind so were forced into going private pretty much i am a huge fan of the nhs but they really let us down on that

it's a lottery. my next door neighbour had a sound with pronounciation difficulties (no other issues) and had about twice as much salt as DD whose issues are so much more severe. Their wait was also much shorter.

*son with pronounciation difficulties, not sound.

Coffee sorry yes it wasn't a developmental problem it was a physical problem with her throat. It's worth checking though.

mouldycheesefan do you mind me asking what kind of throat problem she had? My son sometimes tries to communicate with his mouth closed and and he really doesn't like swallowing non-mushy food.

Thank you all for your huge information and support.

Dear Coffeemachine , I googled ABA it is really good program but huge expensive around £47000 per year. Which is never possible for us . Where my husband only earn £23000 year. I was working but can't work now. Do you have any idea about cheaper option and funding ? How much you have to pay for intensive AbA programe ? How long it needs?

I guess 47k is a full time programme. we only ever did a part time programme with a supervisor. I trained up and did most of the sessions and it cost less than 5k/annually (mainly covered by DLA) and it forced me to go back to work (only p/t though).

there are grants for it out there though if you look for it. Cauldwell etc.

if you are on Facebook checked "ABAA4ALL"

it's not a magic bullet though. DD is still severe and will always be. It doesn't work for all either. Don't think expensive = cure.