Getting frustrated with non-speaking ds

[bringmeashrubbery]

I am finding it very difficult at the moment to understand what is going on with my ds (2.5) He is not speaking properly yet. Knows loads of words but is not very good and/or unwilling to communicate with me. I never know what he wants - he does not try and tell me but just cries. He has had an initial session with the community paed and they have suggested some special type of speech therapy relating to his development ( not sure what that means as he is also down for some regular speech therapy). I know we are 'in the system' and will have to wait for these further therapy sessions to determine if there is a problem. I am just getting very frustrated with the poor lamb at the moment. I know he is not doing it deliberately but I wish he would just talk to me ! Has anyone else with late talkers had these feelings ? It's not helped by all and sundry telling me 'he'll just start coming out with long sentences one day'...

SOrry this is a bit of a rant.

One of the best things you can do is to play games with little people with him - like duplo or playmobile people. I am old and out of date, so there may be toys around that I haven't heard of, but this is one of the first things that speech therapists always used to suggest. You have to get down to the child's level and use the little people to create scenarios and conversations. I have seen it work very well with lots of children. Also, you could look into "signing" - there was a slot on BBC breakfast about it this morning - someone else may know more about it - it is thought to be beneficial for all ages.

HTH

No real advice bringmeashrubbery but one of my old mindees is profoundly verbally dyspraxic and he didn't say anything at this age really other than 'no'. Fortunately he didn't really get frustrated most of the time and I usually could work out what he wanted. I just wanted to say that the speech therapy worked wonders- at least when we got a decent one involved. The first one suggested that we (and his family of course) so action rhymes and animal noises with him. Since I was minding and my own 2 were preschoolers we were doing this every day anyway. Eventually his Mum insisted on a second opinion and after that things got better very quickly. I saw him a few months ago at 6 and had a proper conversation with him which was great.

One thing the good ST did was to teach me and his playgroup some sign language to use with him until he learnt to talk more. This worked well and he really seemed to enjoy it but TBH he didn't need it for long.

You may want to wait until you see the specialist but I have a copy somewhere of the signs we used. The sign language is called sign-a-long and is based on BSL.

bringmeashrubbery I know exactly where you're coming from. When dd was 2.5 and didn't speak properly (even had less of vocab than your son) I asked my father what I could do to encourage... he said : just wait. And he was so right... she is 5 (going on 15) and I wish she had an off-button.

Ds 2.5 is also a very late talker. He uses the odd word (favourite one being MILK NOW ). I had a chat with the nursery and they aren't worried as he is advanced in other areas and they said every child is different.

Though I have to say I do get very frustrated when ds just winges and whines because I can't fathom what he possibly wants. What does help a little bit is to take him by the hand and ask him to 'show me'.

Good luck and try not to despair. Not easy... I know. I've been stomping off in despreation as not to scream at him...

Agree with others that some Makaton signing might ease some of the frustration for you and your ds. It's designed to be used with speech so it's not a language just an aid to communication. the Cbeebies website has a small dictionary of signs if you look at the Something Special section.

More, finished, eat, drink, animal noises, transport stuff etc might all go down well with your ds?

Thanks for all your advice folks. MrsBigD - I do find myself getting increasingly wound up by it - and then feeling terrible for even feeling like that. I am sure that some therapy will help and they have also suggested a special playgroup with a higher ratio of staff per child - not sure when we will get offered this but I think he would really benefit from something like that.

HI my ds2 has speech delay & has had SALT. The first things they told us was to keep sentences very short using & repeating a few kew words.
Also supporting words both his & ours by pictures. So if he wanted a drink he could bring a picture of drink, we would say drink & he would nod or smile, then we would repeat the word while making the drink & when giving him the drink. Eventually he copied & would ask without the picture.
The pictures can be as simple or as complicated as you need depending on his level of speech.
They helped with the frustration of not being able to communicate as much as learning the words.
The SALT gave us some laminated pictures but most we just cut out of magazines.
Good luck, hope this helps & you get some professional support soon !