Is this language problem familiar to anyone?

[nannygoatgruff]

Hello

I've posted this on the child developement thread too but I think I may get more help here.

My DS is nearly 4. He either won't or can't refer to any girl as she/her.

Everyone is him/his, he knows that his sisters are girls, nanny is a lady etc, but still refers to them as he/his.

Another stange language thing is that he seems to talk from a scrip IYSWIM. As we walk to school he will say exactly the same thing at exactly the same place every day.

He will watch a film over and over again on a loop and ask exactly the same question at the same point each time, even though we have answered his question previously.

If I show him a book and say eg where is the red car, he will repeat where is the red car.

There are lots more things I would like to mention, but this post is getting very long, so any advice please?

Sounds like echolalia. Is he quite sociable? If you have any worries, I would recommend going to a paediatrician. Hopefully someone else will be along soon to help

I agree with Ghoulsforgodot, echolalia. Mixing up pronouns, compulsive repeating of phrases (I used to work with a lad who did this with anything said in anger - a loud "Oh sh*t" in the middle of Tescos - where we'd taken him to look at the lighting over the freezers - does not go down well LOL), answering questions with the same or part of the phrase are all things I've come across and are quite common in the sn world :)

Unfortunately, my experience is all of working with kids after statementing, so will quietly agree with Ghoulsforgodot that GP and paediatrician are the best place to start

Thanks for your replies,

He's been assessed twice by community paediatrician and referred to speech and lang therapy.

But I don't actually know what the paed is doing. We are in a room with her, he plays with the toys, she asks my opinion of how he is doing.

Should I be making any specific point to her. All she ever says is that she'll see him again in a few months.

I must add that he was initially referred because of behavior problems. He is very aggressive with other children, and has been since he started to walk.

My 2 year old DS has a horrible bite bruise on his cheek at the moment - again.

He says he likes making others cry because it is funny.

He bites me, spits in my face and has uncontrollable tantrums.

I was reading some old day-care reports from when he was about 18 months old and they mention over and over again about his aggression - no-one ever spoke to me about it though.

He is generally very well behaved at nursery, in fact his teacher commented on how good he is.

I think the point you should make to the paed is that you're not clear what she is looking at, and can she explain what her thoughts are at the moment?

Have you seen the SLT yet?

The paediatrician is obviously trying to fit together the pieces. I would keep a diary of what he does day to day including behaviours and things he says. What input have you had from speech and language therapy.

Has the paed not even told you what he/she is investigating?

It certainly sounds like echolalia and rigidity consistent with ASD.

Not saying that is what it is but you yourself might want to investigate by looking at the NAS website, because IMO it is good to be fore-armed and fore-warned in case you are going down that route so that you can have either the information handy that rules it out and gets them to crack on with investigating what else might be going on, or it can support a swifter dx and access provision.

hth

My dd2 was similar-ish at that age.

She only refered to people/animals as she/her.

"If I show him a book and say eg where is the red car, he will repeat where is the red car"
Exactly the same type of response from dd2 at that age.

Agression/tantrums - oh yes!! I always felt that her agression was due to frustration at not being able to communicate properly, that she resorted to being physical/bad behaviour in order to express herself. In dd2s case this turned out to be spot on. As her communication improved, so did her behaviour.

Dd2 has progressed a lot (now just over 5). Her language has improved though it was initially hard for her to understand concepts such as wh- words (what/why etc). She used to rely on her prelearnt stock of phrases to talk to people, and this has expanded hugely at around the age of 5. Conversation is something she finds really difficult still.

Dd2 is "lucky" in a way that she has a hearing impairment too (apparently unrelated to the language problem, but who knows?) and this means that her language difficulty has been noticed and recognised as requiring intervention. That's half the battle.
She has had quite a lot of assessments (it's what SALT and all the rest do when they don't know what to do!). According to these she has a receptive & expressive language disorder, receptive being more impaired. She doesn't have an actual diagnosis - no-one will diagnose, they just keep refering on to someone else...it's "complicated" by the hearing impairment, an "anomaly" (aka don't know).

There is a "wait-and-see" approach to language disorders in order to see how children develop. It does make you feel that services are pretty much minimal for children like dd2, but it's more due to the fact that little is understood about these disorders and even less on how to help. At least that's my impression.

Thanks for all your replies.

He was referred to SALT in August, I rang last week and they said it takes at least 13 weeks to get onto the system, so that means he shoud have an appointment soon - won't hold my breath though - will start harassing them soon

My DS3, who is an adult now, went through years of assessments and SALT - he was dx Aspergers or semantic pragmatic lang disorder - he had no behaviour problems as such - well not aggressive ones anyway.

He is half-brother to my young DS, but having seen and read up lots about ASD for older son, I am pretty convinced that my DS has some form of ASD.

Yes, I think I must be more assertive at the next paed appointment - 10 Dec - and insist that she actually gives an opinion and starts to get something done, not just another review in 4 months.

What would happen is he did get a dx of ASD or some other disorder?

Do they actually give you advice on how to help your DC or just leave you to get on with it?

I also think my DH is high-functioning Asperger's. He fits every criteria for it.

Hi nanny
I did reply to your thread on behaviour & development but didn't want to probe too much on that one - was hoping you'd come over to this section

I must say the echolalia sounds a bit similar to my ds (3.6) who has recently been diagnosed with ASD. When he was younger he did repeat/echo a lot, and though he has stopped doing that, he still has the stock phrases you mention - says the same thing when doing certain things (a current one is saying "look" when he's eating yoghurt. It gets quite tiring ).

I would certainly agree aggression and frustration would be likely to come from struggling with language - at his age the interaction with his peers will rely on language a lot more so he may feel a bit lost about what's going on, and unable to find ways of communicating.

As far as getting help once you do have a dx (if you do get one, of course), I have to say we haven't really been offered much at all so far - some SALT is apparently on it's way, and we've had a useless meeting with an early intervention officer who was more interested in showing us the amazingly useful folder we can keep papers in than telling us what help they will actually be providing

But I'm being a bit cynical. A dx would of course mean you will be assigned a team of professionals who should provide support, and the pre-school/school can apply for funding for additional support. But you can apply for a statutory assessment (in order to get a statement of SEN) without a diagnosis. And other help, eg SALT, should be given according to need, not diagnosis.

The key thing is finding help on his needs rather than the diagnosis he may or may not get.

The best thing we could ever have done for our ds is start an ABA programme - intensive behavioural therapy based on positive/reward reinforcement. We started this before a dx. If you want more info on this let me know, and also search this section, there is tons of info on this, as well as lots of really helpful stuff on language delays/disorders (seach for posts over the last year or so by Lingle or Moondog, they're experts on this).

Sorry for the long post!

Hello Bialystock

Your reply is really useful - I've been watching DS closely for the last few days, and it does seem that its the communication problem that sets off his aggression.

He talks in riddles sometimes and I really don't know what he's trying to ask or tell me.

Then I get impatient and snap at him and we all get wound up.

Another thing he does is to say 'uh' like he can't hear when I speak to him, or 'what did you say' etc. He's has his hearing tested twice at our Childrens Hosp - they said he was within normal range, but kept losing concentration with the games - putting things in boxes etc - I'm sure you're all familiar with those tests .

NowI'm wondering if its more that he can't understand what I've said - or process it - or something like that.

And he'll argue black is white until you agree with him - show him a green apple, he'll say its a blue banana and theres a major tantrum unless you agree. Should I just say 'whatever you say DS' or insist that he's wrong?

He can understand commands, but ask him a question or just general chat seems to confound him.

Must add, he's got no developmental delays, excellent speech sounds - just odd language use.

"Another thing he does is to say 'uh' like he can't hear when I speak to him, or 'what did you say' etc. He's has his hearing tested twice at our Childrens Hosp - they said he was within normal range, but kept losing concentration with the games"

If he's concentrating really hard, maybe his brain only registers that you have spoken, not what you actually said. Sounds like he knows and uses the right responses to the situation, which is good.

Just think of Bridget Jones' Mother "Don't say what, say pardon..."

I've been going to a parenting course for the past 6 weeks (after harassing and pestering the HV to find something, I eventually walked into Barnardos Childrens Centre and demanded to go on one), I don't know if its just a local project, its called Incredible Years.

Its based on loads of praise, stickers, charts etc.

It does seem to work but its hard to give lots of praise to a child who five minutes earlier tried to bite chunks out of his younger brother.

They show us video clips of so called naughty children - the naughtiest thing so far is when one boy refused to eat his peas