Receptive and Expressive language delay 2.3 year old

[Sama12]

Hi all,
Has anyone experience with receptive and expressive language delay in a 2 year old? Were they able to catch up and what helped them to improve the receptive language? Toddler is super active, not very good attention, which seems to make it harder to process and learn new words.

Also how can these toddlers be helped to have less meltdowns/tantrums due to lack of understanding?

Thanks for any advice and tips.

It's been a while since I posted this. My son is now 4 and he made a lot of progress. He is still delayed in his speech but definitely is able to talk a lot more now. He has no official diagnosis and only received minimal help/intervention from the NHS. I have done all privately. He had a private Autism/Ados assessment but he has no official diagnosis yet because the Dr. thinks he has a lot of strengths and think it wouldn't be fair to make a diagnosis as yet. Due to him having a lot of private early intervention from 2 years old he made a lot of progress and that's why the pediatrician think it's not very clear if he has ASD or not, he just scored below an official diagnosis with the ADOS. And they do believe part of that has to do with the early intervention he had and without the picture would be more clear. He has weekly PRT Thearpy, which helped him a lot to improve speech and get the motivation to talk, where as before it was like he was avoiding to talk due to struggle to say words. I was told by a professional that she do believe he has more of a processing disorder but not like classic ASD and that this difficulty with processing makes it harder for him to learn to talk and process speech and communicate. This obviously falls also under the ASD umbrella but is not like the usual classic signs of ASD. That's why it's a bit difficult to make a firm diagnosis. We still have a long road ahead of us and progress is there but definitely takes hard work and a lot of time. As my son also struggles with attention and getting very active.

Anyway if you are in a similar position, I would advise to go for private early intervention. My son also has a lot of sensory seeking needs, which we also had an OT assess him and create a sensory diet for him. Additionally I also changed few things in his diet, like only having minimal milk intake, here and there. Switched to gluten free products. Overall he made a lot progress and I believe he will continue to do so in his own time.

[quote JenAM]@121314mum I can certainly identify with these feelings. I had months of sleepless nights and went to therapy because of it. Feel free to PM me if you want to talk about it more.
Have you had the 2 year check yet? As that can bring up it there are concerns. It is really difficult conversations to have, but it will probably be good to ask nursery if they do have any concerns. But understandable if you do need to work up to that - I know I did. If you are based in the UK it’s a long diagnosis process, so it wouldn’t happen for a while. Theoretically they will get services in place on a needs basis prior to any diagnosis being made, so if your daughter were to need speech therapy, you should be able to get on the waiting list for that.
We went private for our diagnosis so it happened very quickly, if we did NHS I think we’d be looking at around age 4.
Your daughter will find a way to communicate with you whatever the outcome - if she is autistic, those children still do progress, they are just often on a different timeline to the standard milestones. Xx[/quote]
So glad you got a diagnosis. I don't know if you will come across this in your area but just a heads up in case you don't know...some local authorities don't except private diagnoses in terms of getting support in place for school. Might be worth having a look at your Local Offer on your council website or speaking to your SENAS. xxx

🙄 I meant they don't "accept" a private diagnoses not "except"

Hi everyone, I’d be really grateful for some updates on how your little ones are doing/ advice. Our DD is nearly 2.5 and I’m certain she has receptive and expressive language difficulties. After 3 months she became very slow with her milestones, crawling/ walking and skills such as block building were all very late to develop although she seems much better from that aspect. However her language and understanding remains poor. Gestures were very late to show and even now are hit and miss. Even now she doesn’t point at all and I’m not convinced she knows her name. She has lots of ‘words’ eg she can say ‘Apple’ if you show her an apple or a picture but if you ask her to point it out in a book she doesn’t understand. She can count and knows shapes and animal noises/ some animal names. She also won’t use words to communicate her needs and has no sentences but given the other difficulties she is having I’m not surprised. She does make eye contact (although not as much as other children) and smile/ laugh but doesn’t really show us things of interest like a plane in the sky. She will try to engage with us if she wants something like for me to play with her with her teddy or to read her a book/ food. Mostly she will lead me by the hand to what she wants and even that has only developed in the last few months. She likes to jump and laugh a lot and would spend hours jumping in her cot at night although this has reduced a lot recently. When she was younger she would swipe the back/ front of her hand back and forth over various toys without playing with them but this has stopped for a good few months now. There is pretty much no imaginative play.
We had a video consult with community paediatrics when she just turned two big they were rather non commital and advised they would arrange a follow up (we’ve not heard anything as yet) and referred her to speech and language. We had two sessions on the NHS wheee they advised she has mild- moderate speech delay but again not much else has been offered. We are to have a follow up ‘at some point in the future’. Overall I’d say she is making very slow process but in the interim the gulf between her and her peers continues to grow at pace. I have spent many sleepless night in constant worry about what the future holds, will she learn to communicate/ attend mainstream school etc.. Her nursery acknowledge she has some delay but don’t seem to share my concern. I have been considering private speech and language therapy and or a private assessment to look at ASD/ early intervention but it’s so hard to know what to do (I’ve put her name down a few places but it appears their are long wait lists even privately atm). Contact from HV has been non existent, they barely acknowledged the fact she was hardly meeting half the milestones age 14 months and no one has even contacted us about the 2 year check. My feeling is that there is an issue but I’m second guessing myself with others telling me she will get better in time. Any insights much appreciated x

@Worriedmum921 Hi, I went private for speech, ASD assessment, OT. NHS waitlist/time is extremely long. I would start with early intervention. I started with my soon at 2. He made a lot of progress still a long way to go. No official diagnoses yet.
(but that might be due to the early intervention he had, so it’s not very clear) I was also told at first, don’t worry, some kids take more time etc. He is 4 now. Still struggles with speech and understanding.

@Sama12 thank you so much for the response! Could I ask where you sent your son for early intervention? (please feel free to PM me if you prefer) We are based in London so I’ve contacted a few places but it seems there will be a long wait list. Also if you are aware of any resources I could use to work with my DD in the interim?

Just to add the places I’ve contacted are all private ABA providers and one speech and language place. Although I suspect she will need more than just speech and language therapy.

Hi @Worriedmum921 your daughter sounds like she has some similar traits to my daughter.
It is an extremely worrying time when all you can do is wait on the NHS to get into action.
I wouldn’t pay any attention to the nursery not being concerned or people telling you things will improve with time. As a Mum, if you think your dd needs extra support for whatever reason, then she probably does.
We have found ABA has been great for dd’s progress and we also went to a private paediatrician for an advice appointment so we could be clearer on where to spend our money. This was really helpful.
Still not seen anyone from the NHS!

@Aisha1123 how is your son doing now? has he had any formal diagnosis for anything?

Hi! I know this is years later, but I wondered how your son is now. My son is exactly the same!

Good morning
I am also wondering about your children's progress.

Apologies for bumping the thread again. Would be grateful for any updates on the little ones. In a similar boat here and I'm making myself with worry and guilt.

Hi,

im not sure why my name has changed - I must have forgotten a password at some point but I was originally Bomble.

my son was 4.5yo when he was diagnosed with receptive and expressive language disorder and with autism.

he is now 8yo and has recently been diagnosed with ADHD.

also picked up Sensory processing disorder, and dyspraxia diagnoses along the way.

the diagnoses haven’t done much to gain him any support.

i applied for DLA and pay for any support he has through that. He has had OT intervention for sensory and dyspraxia needs and we are currently in a fight with the LA to get funding for SALT input through his EHCP.

his language disorder impacts on his social communication difficulties, which effects friendships at school. He doesn’t seem to notice/care much at this stage.

cognitively he is fine so school don’t “see any problems” and are most unhelpful.

im currently aiming to get a specialist SALT service involved to assess him (as it’s 3.5 years later) again for an up to date report, they work with autism and Gestalt language acquisition. The assessment costs close to £3000 🤯

the advice we’ve always been given is expose him to language as much as possible and read to him as much as possible.

he can’t sit still for me to read to him for long though and so it’s not always an easy task.

we found most of his language acquisition came when he was 3 years old, learned chunks of language from peppa pig during lockdown and that provided his basis for language (and his accent!)

good luck with it all and happy to chat more if needed xx