2.5yo with speech delay - did nursery really ‘bring them on’?

[November2018]

Has anyone got their DC a place in nursery/preschool whilst working on a speech delay? Did it really ‘bring them on’?

2.5yo DS’ health visitor wants him to start at preschool to help with his speech. His inability to verbalise his needs is making him anxious and frustrated.

I’ve found a preschool (it’s been highly recommended) which has plenty of SEN support staff, visual tools and encourages basic makaton.

I’m just nervous they won’t be able to meet his needs and he will feel anxious there. Will the excitement of being somewhere new completely outweigh his anxiety? Did your DC come on ‘leaps and bounds’ by being around other children?

I would consult a speech therapist. Ours advised us not to put speech delayed dd in nursery but to keep her at home until 3 with lots of 1:1 interaction to help her speech

2.5 seems young to diagnose speech delay. Is there another underlying reason for thinking this is the case?
Has hearing been checked?

I must add that we’ve not been able to socialise him this past year at all due to health issues. He’s currently at home with me 24/7.
DP works Mon-Fri but gives plenty of attention when he’s home. We use visual aids, Makaton and have been doing everything we possibly can to support him. His speech delay is a complication of epilepsy, which is being monitored by a paediatrician.

@IdesMarchof

I would consult a speech therapist. Ours advised us not to put speech delayed dd in nursery but to keep her at home until 3 with lots of 1:1 interaction to help her speech

This is what my gut is telling me to do. I’m going to ask for a second opinion. I’m concerned that he won’t get that 1:1 interaction and it will make him more anxious

Difficult to say, and I can totally understand your concerns about how the frustration might kick in. If the staff are experienced and highly trained, then it can be fantastic. If they are just paying lip-service to makaton, and don’t focus on structured and supported interactions then not so good. I second the advice to talk to your SALT and have a good long talk to the nursery before you decide.

I’m a childminder And had a Similar aged child start in September With a speech delay. His speech is much improved now, not at the same level as others of the same age, but he is getting So much better and his parents often comment how much he has come on and how much he has learnt in a few months.
Would a smaller setting help his anxiety do you think? Sometimes children do really well in a smaller group and obviously the childminder would be the same person all day, whereas in a nursery the staff could change slightly throughout the day (Shifts/breaks) so depends if that would affect your child’s anxiety.

But in answer to your question, good quality childcare (whatever setting you choose) will benefit your child and their speech.

My dd was a little behind in her speech. She started preschool when she was 2 yrs 9 months. She loved it - new toys, lots of arts and crafts, nativity play, musical instruments, playdough are some of the things she did. I’d say that it was great for playing alongside other kids, fine motor skills, generally having a structure to the day, colours, shapes, counting, jolly phonics but I wouldn’t say it particularly benefited her speech and actually the staff used to struggle to understand her. The thing that brought her speech on was a private speech therapist and me speaking to her lots, reading lots of books and playing with her.

My son was the same. We were really worried my son was around the same age. We went on holiday and he stated to say a few words. That was all. The hv at check up said try a hearing test. We did results clear. We didn't know what else to try. I found a local group called tiny talk. When we went for our first lesson i explained to the teacher about how we were mainly here to work on his speech. She said no problem. The class was fab and within a few weeks he was saying more and more words. Maybe something like this to go along with nursery maybe helpful. If you want any more help feel free to contact me

Yes I would also try a hearing test - my dd needed grommets and that really helped her speech.

My experience was that hv know very little about speech delays

Thank you all for sharing your experiences. I hadn’t really considered a smaller childminder setting. I will definitely explore this avenue before I sign him up to preschool.
I really like the sound of tiny talk. Are they national? I like the idea of being able to stay with him and learn together in a group setting.
If nothing else, he definitely needs to socialise with other children. I think that will help with anxiety in the right setting and any speech improvement will be a bonus.

it maybe his epilepsy but I would check round the family to find if anybody else had delayed speech - grandmas & aunties & MIL & your dm. Does he understand what you say? & the good old chestnut - have you had his hearing checked (the infamous glue ear)

We’re waiting for a hearing test. I’m really not sure what the outcome will be. It’s hard for them to say for sure that his epilepsy is causing the speech delay. There are obvious social factors due to long periods of isolation, but the HV thinks something else underlying is contributing.

My DS was diagnosed with a speech delay at about 2.5-ish. I found nursery helped with his social skills, but also that he became more frustrated with other children because he couldn’t communicate. He started lashing out if other children took toys off him as he couldn’t communicate any other way.

Hello, I think depends on your child and it being the right setting for them.
I feel one of the benefits of starting nursery/childminder for children who have a language delay are the number and type of communicative opportunities they have in nursery, versus at home. Whilst they may have plentiful opportunities to interact at home, their communication partner(s) - you and Dad I assume, will be able to anticipate what they want and there is less need for them to learn to communicative effectively to get their needs met. In nursery they are presented with the challenge of needing to ask for things from people they don’t know as well, of needing to build relationships through their communication with the staff and other children. I think overall it just challenges them a little more to be independent, but of course, you want that challenge to be at the right level and not to make them anxious. I think it’s important you approach the SENCo at any provisional choices of nursery to ask about their approach to support children with SLCN.

The other benefit is the exposure to a greater variety of activities and different things that they can experience compared to at home, and all of the vocabulary that goes with that, whether verbal or signed.

Have you considered a childminder?

My son has verbal dyspraxia. I put him into a preschool at 2 to try and bring his speech on, but he got very stressed and upset, so I took him out in the end. He did manage school nursery at 3. His was a disorder rather than a delay though, so looking back, being around children wouldn't gave really helped his speech.

His understanding is spot on. He blows me away with his understanding, memory, imagination and creativity. He was completing puzzles quickly and building intricate structures from a young age.
I’m sitting here wishing they’d checked his hearing sooner!

It depends. Ds1 went to a private mainstream nursery and I don't think it made any difference to his speech. Ds5 went to a special needs preschool with weekly speech therapy and I think that really helped him.

@BitchIAmFromChicago

My DS was diagnosed with a speech delay at about 2.5-ish. I found nursery helped with his social skills, but also that he became more frustrated with other children because he couldn’t communicate. He started lashing out if other children took toys off him as he couldn’t communicate any other way.

This is a concern of mine. He’s a tall, strong boy and I worry about him being frustrated around others who cannot quickly identify his needs. Did the lashing out fizzle out quite quickly?

Childcare "helps" in that they are forced to speak more as the busy setting and staff that don't know them as well as adults at home means they can't rely on people anticipating/understanding their needs.
However children with speech delays often show challenging behaviour at nursery as they are frustrated and confused.

At 2.5 then 1:1 time either at home, or in a small setting where they can really get to know him will probably be better.

@Clove76

Hello, I think depends on your child and it being the right setting for them. I feel one of the benefits of starting nursery/childminder for children who have a language delay are the number and type of communicative opportunities they have in nursery, versus at home. Whilst they may have plentiful opportunities to interact at home, their communication partner(s) - you and Dad I assume, will be able to anticipate what they want and there is less need for them to learn to communicative effectively to get their needs met. In nursery they are presented with the challenge of needing to ask for things from people they don’t know as well, of needing to build relationships through their communication with the staff and other children. I think overall it just challenges them a little more to be independent, but of course, you want that challenge to be at the right level and not to make them anxious. I think it’s important you approach the SENCo at any provisional choices of nursery to ask about their approach to support children with SLCN.

The other benefit is the exposure to a greater variety of activities and different things that they can experience compared to at home, and all of the vocabulary that goes with that, whether verbal or signed.

Have you considered a childminder?

There are definitely huge added benefits to having exposure to a variety of activities and faces. I’ll have another conversation with the SENCO officer at the preschool. I have so many more questions now than I did when I met her a few weeks back

It did! We had about 6 months of dreading every nursery pick up because of the incident forms we had to sign. Once he was able to communicate effectively at around 3.5 the lashing out completely stopped. Nursery had seen it all before and his key worker knew the signs to look out for.

What this thread is affirming for me, is that it’s totally individual to your child and their needs (and perhaps getting to the route cause of the speech delay is more important at this stage than rushing to get him into a childcare setting). My plan is to chase the hearing test, try to understand more about his specific type of speech delay once we’ve seen the SALT and to tell the HV that I feel a bit pressured to put him into childcare without knowing how I can best help him at home first.
When he’s ready, I will consider socialising him in a childcare setting (whether it be preschool or with a childminder). I will ensure I have really understood their SEN provisions and will ask better questions.
Thank you all for helping me to put a bit of a plan together.

@November2018

His understanding is spot on. He blows me away with his understanding, memory, imagination and creativity. He was completing puzzles quickly and building intricate structures from a young age. I’m sitting here wishing they’d checked his hearing sooner!

Has anyone suggested adding checks for asd? That description rang bells for me as DS was very similar, especially the puzzles and memory combined with speech delay. The asd diagnosis came a lot later as this was some years ago. He taught himself to read fluently by the time he was 4 but his speech and conversation developed much more gradually. I'm not joking about the reading and I've since discovered that children who do this often have asd. Anyway, just a thought and I hope your DS gets suitable support that helps him.

He’s recently been having fortnightly sessions with an ‘early intervention’ healthcare worker. I think she might be recognising some ASD traits from things she has highlighted to me. There have been many ‘we need to keep an eye on that behaviour’ comments about his very specific interests and habits etc. It’s a conversation DP and I have had too. I’m not sure what their plan is in terms of assessing him going forward. I need to start asking more questions at the next session. Feeling a bit overwhelmed with it all at the moment as there’s so much going on with his health/needs.
It’s incredible that your DS could read fluently at 4. Thanks for your suggestion of ASD. I don’t feel so alone in thinking this could be a possibility.

@November2018

He’s recently been having fortnightly sessions with an ‘early intervention’ healthcare worker. I think she might be recognising some ASD traits from things she has highlighted to me. There have been many ‘we need to keep an eye on that behaviour’ comments about his very specific interests and habits etc. It’s a conversation DP and I have had too. I’m not sure what their plan is in terms of assessing him going forward. I need to start asking more questions at the next session. Feeling a bit overwhelmed with it all at the moment as there’s so much going on with his health/needs. It’s incredible that your DS could read fluently at 4. Thanks for your suggestion of ASD. I don’t feel so alone in thinking this could be a possibility.

This is exactly what my early intervention team told me, my son is also 2.5 and now has a speech therapist and we talked about nursery but she advised me that it might be best to wait until he's 3 as at the minute he might struggle and set him back with the progress he's made. ( he also has some very particular interests and routines that's he's set up for himself) so asd has been mentioned but he's too young to be assessed.

He's also very tall and strong for his age but also very smart