"Mild expressive language delay"

[biggest]

according to speech therapy assessment today. Anyone have any experience of this? DS is 2.6, doesn't need ongoing therapy but one more session to give me some 'strategies' and a review in 3 months.

Well, to be honest it sounds like they think he's just a bit late talking, but will probably catch up and isn't delayed with his receptive language skills (ie understanding).

yes there are two types of language delay, expressive and receptive. Mild expressive is that he would say some words and behind in terms of milestones (not putting two words together? Bad prononciation?) Strageties will include some new games, and some listening techniques to help reinforce what he already says and try to get him to say new things. Speech and language therapy are very focused on helping you in your home situation instead of providing short sessions in an office. It's not to say that you are to blame for the speech delay, but the techniques can help you find different ways to encourage your child to immitate speech. A good book to read about this is 'it takes two to talk'.

Yes, DS was diagnosed the same early on. An expressive language delay on it's own without other issues is usually just called late talking. The parent training classes actually do help - for us, I so easily understood everything he was communicating that I responded immediately and he had no "need" to talk. I learned to wait a few seconds (and it was hard!), and the talking started fast and furious.

We also adopted most of the book "Baby Talk" by Sally Ward (initially recommended to me on MN!), and found that it was great all around.