Can he catch up?

[Crazymumto1]

Asking fellow mums for advice

My Son recently started pre school and his main issue is social skills, he is speech delayed and struggles interacting with peers his own age. He has a speech therapist and she has gone into school and said she can see why they are saying it’s a concern, but his speech is affecting his ability to interact, has anyone any experience in this? Or any words of wisdom

A very worried mummy

hi my now 5 year old was like this. His social skills and speech were not great. He’s seeing a speech therapist since the age of 2
Being at school has brought him out of his shell and even though he is behind on speech he manages to keep up and play with his friends. School has been a huge help.
He’ll get there. I was worried too but not as much now x

Hi thanks
the speech therapist has been in he does have social problems when there and we have now set a plan and she is setting a plan for him on Friday. We are following through things at home
Can I please ask what your son was like?

I think getting him speech therapy and creating a plan to help him with social skills is really pro-active and will be extremely helpful to him. I am a teacher and generally find that those children whose parents acknowledge that there is a problem and work with other agencies to help the child are the children who go on to make the most progress and succeed. Well done mum!

Yes I have a 4.5 year old with speech and language difficulties. Speech therapist gave nursery some activities e.g. structured turn-taking games to do with DC and small groups of other children to help improve social communication. Things are improving slowly but steadily, he is still behind but starting to make friends now.
What has your DC's speech therapist suggested OP? They are the professional. If it is peer to peer interaction then they should be directing preschool in what extra support to put in place.

my son would just play by himself when he first started nursery. He could barely say anything. When i used to take him to the park i would notice my other kids join in and play with kids but he never would. Now he has more functional language and has grown in confidence so has totally changed. How old is your son?

Hi all
my son is three years four months
she has seen him one to one which he is very age appropriate but when he is in pre school she says he is very different and acts a lot younger, repeats phrases asks for mummy daddy etc, she has worked with them and said start a visual timetable to help him, she is going back in September, then will advise again

He is off school till September, she will be working with him one to one over summer to improve his speech too

that’s great. You’re doing the right thing for sure. We will also continue seeing our therpaist during summer. My son was barely speaking at nursery but in reception now he has improved a lot. He is behind his peers in terms of speech but i am confident he will get it. He’s at an age now where he can self correct so if he says something incorrectly now or not in complete sentences we can tell him where he’s gone wrong.
My son kept asking for me when he started reception. He’s finally stopped it. I have a 3 year older daughter at nursery and she asks for me every 5 mins at nursery lol!

We are fully supportive of nursery and when he does have a bad day, he is lashing out to get a reaction we take iPad away, we have bought new board games to encourage turn taking, reading books, we are having a big clear out of toys, we fully acknowledge he has issues there and are constant talks with nursery.

one thing my son didn’t do well was rope playing play which is important for their development. I remember clearing toys and getting a mini kitchen, supermarket etc and that helped a lot

We have literally a nursery at home in terms of toys his play is very appropriate and because he won’t speak etc it’s affecting everything his ability to learn, his development age he’s showing, his understanding, he is behind in his primary areas. Me and his dad are obviously very worried. At home he talks, he is speech delayed as we know, he needs help with pronouns etc

it will come with help with speech therpaist. My son never used to use verbs, would get genders mixed up and he still leaves out a lot of language in sentences.

Thanks honestly
his speech therapist said his speech is really hindering him, his dad and me have said we will fund whatever he needs no matter what

we moved our son to a school where there are only 15 kids in the class. He needed this environment. It has really helped him. He is delayed but he is thriving now. i have faith that with the speech therapist he will catch up. He can read well and writing is ok. In september he will be year 1 and this is when i’m told formal education will start so we will support him as best as we can.
At the minute it only seems to be a speech delay, nothing else.

Yes he goes to a school tht has small class sizes at the minute it’s a large class but they’ve said next year it will be much smaller so he will be better off

I keep questioning my parenting abilities, I’m meant to be a teacher

he’s still so young. I’ve got 3 other kids so i know it’s just one of those things.

The teacher keeps saying he’ll be fine and he will get the help we need, I just don’t understand where it went wrong

nothing is wrong. So many kids have the same issues i’ve found. Is he an only child? Lockdown didn’t help anyone either. I know it’s easier said than done but try not to worry. You’re doing all the right things to help him

Yeah he’s an only very pampered only 😂 lockdowns didn’t help and then I got very sick and was diagnosed with an illness which I couldn’t even brush my own hair so I do feel partly responsible

My DS had a significant speech disorder when he was younger and struggled with the social side of things at pre school and a bit at school when he started there. The speech therapy team were brilliant and started work with him when he was 2.5, they would work with the preschool and school and set homework. It made huge difference to him and as his speech improved so did his confidence and his social skills. He was signed off by the speech therapist when he was 6 and has fully caught up with his peers (he’s 11 now and set to start secondary in September). The hard work does pay off!

Aww thank you
it’s good to hear other peoples stories, I can’t have more children and it’s honestly like someone smacked me in my face when I found out, we haven’t waited to get him help and we have said we will help with whatever we can, he’s been assessed by the speech therapist and she has been in to school so we on Friday are having another session and she is making a plan, she said speech and social skills go hand in hand

my older son was similar- not as delayed but he did have some issues. He’s now 11 and top in english and history. Looking at him makes me less worried for my other son.
For only children too lockdown really didn’t help. no little kids to mix and play with.
Speech therapists are fab. There’s huge waiting lists for them at the min
sorry to hear of your illness x

Thank you, she is very good and the wait was huge so I didn’t want to wait, she’s making a plan, it’s crap because it effects everything

@milkshake2019 Hey, can I ask how your son is now? I’m feeling the same as you were about mine at the moment x