6 year old with lisp/ very Visual Spatial

[artichaut27]

Hi,

This might be a bit specific but my 6 year old son has a lisp and I'm starting to getting him assessed at school and NHS.

He produces the same sound for a whole set of phonemes, not only /s/ and /z/, but also /sh/, /ch/, /dj/, /th/, /dr/, /j/ and more.

He started speaking late but always understood what we said.

I had his earring tested last year and they said he could fine.

His main issue I think, is that he very visual, and big time daydreamer, i.e. he is really good at Lego and storytelling/imagining, and creative play.

Because he lives in his bubble, he doesn't listen really well.

At school, they complained about it in Reception and now in Year 1, he has time-outs for 'not listening'. His reading is starting to lag behind as well.

My youngest son who is 3, is the complete opposite and already reads books that are aimed for the end of Reception. He listens to everything and learns super fast.

So the contrast is between the two sibling is quite striking.

Anyone else has a child who is so Visual Spatial and a daydreamer that his/her speech seems to be delayed?

Many thanks,

I would say that's a speech impediment rather than a delay. Have you seen a speech therapist?

I hasn't seen a speech therapist yet. See what they say.

I'm slightly worried about possible dyslexia which seems to be prevalent with people 'who think in images'.

My Ds2 has an auditory processing disorder. This webpage explains it quite well. He also had speech delay and difficulties.

www.tempapd.apduk.org.uk/whatapd.htm I'd say year 1 and 2 were the worst for him as the other more normal children were starting to be able to listen better, instructions become more complex and they spend less time playing.

I didn't bother getting him officially diagnosed as it does tend to be something that gets better as they get older, he goes to a private school (so we don't need a educational plan) and the teachers were very good at implementing things I suggested, such as a small white board for him to write instructions down on, moving him to the front of the class, breaking down instructions into more manageable stages. We also had weekly speech therapy.
I did also speak to a paed OT and an consultant paed who agreed with my unofficial diagnosis..

He's now 9, his speech is pretty perfect and although he's not great in new situations and gets overwhelmed quite easily, especially when there is a lot of background noise, he's fine. Academically too, he's in the top set for both english and maths.

Thanks underneaththeash! This is very helpful, and it's good to see that there are ways of coping and that your son is overcoming it.

Auditory processing disorder has popped up a few times in my googling, and I will keep it in mind.
Listening is a big issue in his relation with language and memorising.
I'm French, and I've never managed to get him to speak French. He has a complete block on it. He understands a lot of French but cannot produce it.
He doesn't retain information very well if it's auditory. A lot of the time though he really is 'off with the fairies', which is why he doesn't listen.
He is still in state school. He will enter private school in Year 3. But for now, I need to really keep an eye on him and do a lot of the support myself.