3 year old poor communication skills

[loudaeroplanes]

My DS is 3.5 and while he can talk - never shuts up in fact he is really poor at communicating. If you ask what he did at preschool he often doesn’t really say anything. Even direct questions ‘did you bake a cake?’ will go unanswered. If he’s hurt and you ask him what happened you get nothing back.

That sounds like he’s silent all the time and he isn’t but it tends to be answers out of context or incorrect.

The big worry for me is he doesn’t communicate a need to go to the toilet - he will hold on but without being prompted wets and soils himself so we’re still having a lot of accidents which feels like it’s edging out of the realms of ‘normal’ in a way?

I don’t know. Preschool report no concerns although they have put toileting as one of his targets as I’d expect.

I could have literally written your post. My DS is also 3.5. Doesn't answer questions or have any sort of back of forth with me or anyone else. I tried toilet training twice already and got nowhere. Going to try again when he's on summer hols from nursery but not holding out much hope. Similarly he would rather hold it in until he couldn't any longer than use the potty or tell me, etc.

We get very minimal verbal communication to let us know he's hungry, hot/cold, wants his jumper off, wants to go outside, watch Cbeebies, etc but it's not always clear. We are gradually starting to get 3-4 sentences but it's sparse and out of context a lot of the time.

I first raised this with HV when he was 18 months (he was pretty much silent until age 2), got his hearing checked and all fine, and it's been a bit of a wait and see approach with the HV. He started nursery in January and they picked up on his communication and verbal development basically straight away and are in agreement with me that we are likely dealing with a speech delay and my son needs extra support.

In my area you can put in parental referrals for speech and language, and lately because his nursery agree with me and have now gotten our HV to help too, they are fast tracking our referral for us because it's been going on so long.

From what you've said, I'd definitely look into possibly getting his hearing checked with a GP and contacting your HV and seeing what they think/ can do if they think he should be referred for SALT, etc.

Not saying any of this to worry you, but just sharing my experience and where we're at currently. I can also appreciate the frustration the lack of communication probably causes for both you and your DS at times. I personally felt like I couldn't pursue with toilet training without his communication improving which at this point I feel like I definitely need some outside help with x

The thing is @Lottie917 his speech is very good and he can communicate well but only on his terms. Which I know sounds stupid, but I’m not sure how else to explain it. So if his sister grabs his hair ‘stop it (name) that is not very kind!’ Or ‘my have water please mummy.’ So he CAN but just … doesn’t, over some things.

Ooh I see! Apologies for the misunderstanding.

When you're asking him things are you always infront of him, like face to face or does he clearly hear things even if he's far away, like it's definitely not a hearing issue or anything like that?

It could potentially be a phase maybe, or a testing of boundaries and seeing what happens if he doesn't respond or when he makes a choice not to engage in conversation perhaps x

I had some niggles like this over DS2's speech and when he was still making grammatical errors at his 5 year old check up (we're not in the UK) we ended up getting a referral for speech therapy. He does speak normally, ie in sentences, and most of the time it makes sense but it still often has to be on his terms. The speech therapy has only really focused on sounds (he has a lisp and can't say sh either and is still using w for r and not saying th properly).

I have recently found some stuff online that makes me think he might be a gestalt language processor? I brought it up with his speech therapist and she didn't think anything of it, and it doesn't ultimately matter because he is already speaking normally although I still think his communication is a bit... non literal. Different to my other children for sure.

But yes, I know what you mean and I'd keep track of it. It was interesting collating some videos of DS2 talking at different ages.

@loudaeroplanes how is your son doing? I very recently posted a similar thread and my son sounds very similar to yours, your thread came up as a suggestion at the bottom of mine. My DS is a little younger 2.5yrs has an amazing amount of words - can speak in 5 word sentences, can communicate his needs, narrates what he is doing, follows direction, but doesn’t engage that much with back and forth conversation or answer questions about his day and often just repeats back what I’ve said. Wondering if you have seen much progress in the last few months?