Quick Update on Late Speaking DS/Lessons Learned

[BlueberryPancake]

DS2 is 2.5 and so far only had three words in his vocab: Mum, Yes, and Burp. About 4 weeks ago, he started babbling like a baby and making different sounds, and about one week ago he said a few new words, including Me (more like Me Me Me Me), Dad, Up, Juice... Now, he has said/repeated about 40 words I think, but very very quietly and in a tiny little voice.

He is very self conscious about it I think so we don't praise him too much when he talks. He sais some words without being prompted, such as more, up, juice, no, and a few others. This morning he sang twinke twinkle little star and said most of the words, I nearly cried.

THe Speech Therapist asked me what I thought I did differently, but that made me feel quite cross actually. I don't think that his lack of speech has/had anything to do with me, but just with his own rhythm/development.

Anyway, lessons learned, not much really appart from listening to what he was saying, following some of the stuff in 'It Takes Two to Talk', not asking him too many questions.

Something we did that I think influenced his confidence was to start him in 'drama' classes for toddlers. He loves it, and always makes progress (new sounds, confidence, words) after the class. In my opinion, the 'drama' classes have had more impact on his language development than the speech therapy we have received so far.

Thank you Blueberry. My ds3 appears to be a late talker, which takes some getting used to, after the first two who are both chatterboxes. I worried about it for about a month and then stopped worrying, but dp is still concerned. Ds3 shows no other signs of delayed development and I have heard quite a few stories of other kids who talked late with no long-lasting negative repercussions.

I also feel quite cross when 'specialists' imply that it is somehow due to the home environment and whatever mums are doing or not doing - especially when they may have other children who talk exactly when expected. I have just read The Einstein Syndrome and the author is quite damming of specialists who fail to listen to the parents and label kids with GDD or something similar.

Would you recommend 'It Takes Two to Talk'?

That's fantastic BP - I think in your case the other development was normal - play, shared attention ? so it's important to look at those issues as well as 'just' the speech. Professionals can be very patronising and may not even have much personal experience of observing child development but I still think there is a lot of complacency about 'late development' and ideally parents would have access to early check up/assessment - which would rule out the worried well and the late but normal developers and get those who need attention on to specialist provision.

Sounds exactly the same as my ds. He was saying nothing at 2 but now at 2.7 he is using full sentences and sings all the time!

Dh was very concerned but ds understood everything and played nicely so I was confident his speech would come.

I did find the approach of talking about what he was doing and not asking questions good. Also not making a big deal when he said something just replying.