Speech therapist tomorrow

[HP2020]

Off to the speech therapist tomo and feeling anxious

My son is 2.5 and has a handful of words that he says randomly and then he speaks in constant jibber jabber

What if they tell me that kids never speak?! Everyone who knows and meets my son says he's perfectly fine and just delayed but I still can't stop this nagging fear of what if he never talks?

Anyone?

Hey @HP2020
I asked for my dd to be referred to SALT at her 2 year check and she was seen at around 2.6 by NHS who were basically happy that it was probably a delay due to her having glue ear rather than developmental issues. They didn’t want to see her again until after she started preschool (at 2.10) we chose to see a private therapist in between times as Like you I was very worried. No one else was as she was expressive and communicative in her own way and understood and followed instructions perfectly. Private SALT was lovely and helped me bring the best out of her. We started seeing her in the May and by the November DD was a right chatterbox, so much so she woke me up one night to tell me she could count to 30 and proceeded to demonstrate!
There was a lot of minor/slow and steady progress along the way with a couple of massive “surges” too. By just over three she was on a par with her peers and at 3.9 comes out with amazing things that astound us every day.
Few quirks in pronunciation but SALT pointed out that these are mainly typical for her age and there are sounds that they can’t form properly until closer to 5.
Either way she is pretty good at making herself understood and a much happier child now she can communicate better.
I’m sure your session will be positive and you’ll get some good support. Be prepared to put the work in at home in between sessions too, but I’m sure you’ll see improvement xx

Hey thanks for your response. If I could afford private I would but I don't think I can yet Altho I'm saving towards it just in case

Please don't worry. I don't know much about the topic but my nephew barely spoke until he was 4 and in school all day. He would only use vowel sounds until then and was very hard to understand. Absolutely fine now. Best of luck for tomorrow.

Thank u @India999 that's reassuring to hear. How old is he now? Did he have speech therapy?

he has words OP, so he can already speak and he's only 2.5 - hopefully speech therapy will help with the language/comprehension and the putting it all together.

So the advice I got today from the first therapy session was to anticipate and let him speak so say ready steady and pause for him to say go. Those kinda exercises and try to make them fun as I go along. So gonna do that and seeing her again end of October so we will see how we get on. So far he hasn't copied me tho. I do it once to show him ready steady go and then so ready steady and pause so he can copy me and say go but he just laughs 🙈my fear is what if he doesn't copy me?

Nope, no therapy at all. He's 8 and perfectly normal! Speech is lovely and a very chatty and engaging boy :)

@India999 I'm glad to hear your nephew is doing well but I am intrigued so hope u don't mind me asking....wasn't it hard if he couldn't say much at school and presumably was there from 9-3 and if he didn't or couldn't speak much how was he able to communicate etc

@HP2020 just curious as DD is the same age and to be honest I’m not entirely sure what she should be saying at this stage.

When you say jibber jabber do you mean he doesn’t have words? Does he use any sentences or no? Or is it more pronunciation? I feel like DD has a growing vocabulary but tends to use single words rather than really stringing very much together but I don’t know if I’m over analysing/expecting too much. Did your SALT say where they should be at this age?

I hope it’s okay to ask!

@kellybean18 jibber jabber is basically he speaks his own language so it's like he's chattering away in French or something. He has some odd words but doesn't use them often. He says na na and waves when he's saying good bye to someone so he understands the concept even tho he's not saying bye bye properly

Ok so here's an update if anyone wants to comment with opinions etc

I've done the whole ready steady go thing. And I do it in situations where I know he gets excited so I will say ready steady go and then I say it again ready steady but I pause and allow for him to say go which he has done a few times but not always. So he is capable of saying go but doesn't always choose to... so is this positive that he can say words even if he's not always choosing to?

My DS is 3 and just started the nursery at school and sounds very similar. He has words that he says but the rest is jibberish. He has a quite a few phrases that he will say too. He won’t say a single thing in nursery though, so they’re referring him to the SENCO who I’m assuming will refer to speech therapy.

Very scary but it’s a relief to see others have experienced similar and the children have just improved.

Does anyone have any comments on my latest update which is basically my son can say words as he does sometimes but it's like it's on his terms so sometimes u will try to get him to say a word and he will and other times nothing so he IS capable but choosing not to?!

Anyone?

@HP2020

Does anyone have any comments on my latest update which is basically my son can say words as he does sometimes but it's like it's on his terms so sometimes u will try to get him to say a word and he will and other times nothing so he IS capable but choosing not to?!

I don't think this is anything to worry about and sounds very similar to my 2.5YO dd. It frustrates me at times but I have to remind myself that she's a human being not a performing monkey I would stop just asking him to repeat things as it'll get neither of you anywhere. Try just encouraging normal speech with regular conversation instead but giving him clear indications that you want an answer eg 'would you like the red cup or the green cup today?' And just talk and wait plenty of time for responses. Good luck xx

@Jannt86 thank u for your response and glad to see I'm not the only one in this boat.