3.5 year old who isn't talking yet

[DaisyMum40]

My DS2 is just over 3.5 and has never spoken a word, or even attempted to. All he does is baby babble. I first raised my concerns over his development in January 2020 and in the last two years we've had one paediatric appointment and a handful of SLT appointments. I'm starting to get incredibly frustrated and concerned. His nursery have reached out to educational psychologists and additional support teachers through the local council, but as he's not yet in his pre school year, he is not considered a priority. My health visitor is seeing us tomorrow, she is going to chase for a further paediatric appointment.

I just don't know what else to do, how else can I figure out what's wrong, why he isn't showing signs of trying to speak? Has anyone else got to this age with children with no vocabulary?

Just to add, his hearing has been tested three times and there's not been anything to suggest that's the problem.

No advice as such but my almost 4yo does have words but not sentences

I have however a BIL (hubby a bro) who didn't speak at all one word thrn suddenly came out with a sentence one day, think he was close in age to your child. He's very clever as an adult now

What I would say is chase chase chase. My nursery are very good with my son and are doing everything they can to help and his SALT encouraged and recommended us to see Paedtrician which we did

Don't stop fighting. You need to really push and be a pain to get help I've found

Let us know how you get on tomorrow @DaisyMum40.

No advice but am in a similar situation with my son. Does your son have any other issues? We're the opposite in that we've seen the paediatrician more than the SLT, the doctor is pushing for an autism assessment but I want to wait until we've had more SLT involvement. Good luck with your appointment today, although in my experience not much ever comes seeing the HV but maybe mine's just a bit useless.

Thanks everyone. Autism was discussed at the paediatric appointment last year but we were told it's just too early to say either way, which we agreed with. My HV said yesterday that we should get another paediatric appointment in the next three months. So, having that plus input from an educational psychologist (which the nursery are pushing hard to get), then we will have a better idea of what's best for him. We have to consider whether his current nursery is the best setting for him, she suggested some other nurseries we could consider applying to that might suit his needs better. But also don't want to leave it too long to decide this, he starts school in August 2023 so he's need a lot of time to settle somewhere new before school. She also talked us through what additional support might look like at school and confirmed this is available at our local school (on application) which our eldest son goes to, so this was helpful and reassuring. HV is happy with his development overall, it's literally just the speaking thats an issue. Anything could happen between now and starting school, he could just start talking tomorrow, but it's been helpful to have a better understanding of what the next 18 months might look like if we need it.

If he's out head on over to the SN section, they can usually talk you through getting a diagnosis and starting Primary school

My son is nearing 3 and also doesn't talk. We have had salt consultations and paediatrician video calls. He is on the wait list for an autism assessment. I would say put them down for the autism assessment, get on the wait list if you think it even may be a possibility. As depending where you live the wait times can be extremely long. It's currently 30 months where I live. So he will be 5 before he even has the first one!

There are many tools that can be used to track his progress and identify areas of concerns; the MCHAT (he is a little old for this now as it's up to 24M old) and the near monthly ASQ questionnaires are very good starting points which are used across many different child development settings. I.e. is it only his speech that is behind or are there other areas of concern?

My nearly 4 yo DD doesn’t speak, she was diagnosed with borderline autism back in November. We haven’t seen a S&L therapist for several months which I have now raised concern about! And thinking of going down the route of a private one.