Language / speech delay - Please help/advise

[Pennybubbly]

First off, sorry for the long post: please bear with me!

I've noticed for a while that my DS (3.3) is behind his peers when it comes to speech. He has no problem with any of the sounds, can repeat words back to you (when he wants to), but he just doesn't talk much. He is being brought up in a bilingual setting: Japanese/English and Japanese is stronger than his English, which is not surprising as we live in Japan and he has been in full-time daycare since he was 15 months, and though I want him to speak English of course, it's more a priority that he speaks properly in ANY language. Even in Japanese though, he doesn't say much. His sentences are very short, very simple and though he seems to understand what his said to him, most of the time, he just doesn't bother answering. The same with English, though he's producing less English and hardly makes sentences at all, though he does understand.
Elsewhere, he has melt-downs quite frequently (maybe one or two a day- and I wonder if it's because he still can't express himself clearly, whether it's because he's only just 3, or whether it's something more sinister. My DH keeps saying "autism, autism" and really winding me up and upsetting me, but I've checked autism and apsergers sites and they no way match him and his personality. The only similar trait I could find was that he sometimes lines up cars etc, but I think most kids do that and his is usually during play, he doesn't insist on them staying that way or anything. The only thing that matched on the aspergers site was that he occasionally gets upset if a pattern is disrupted - so the other day, he was on his scooter and something happened (he fell off or DD (6) went in front of him or something) and he wanted to go back to where the 'thing' happened and start again from there. But incidents like that are maybe one a month, not any more often (in fact I can only think of one other time he did something similar!).
Quite often, I'll have to shout at him to get his attention. "ds go and wash your hands, ds go and wash your hands, ds go and wash your hands, DS GO AND WASH YOUR HANDS!!" and it ends up me dragging him to wash his hands. But then again it's to WASH HIS HANDS, not get a present and DD was/is particularly compliant in that area, so perhaps I am bad to compare (ie I've got extremes in both kids!).
He had his ears checked at his 3-year check-up and they were fine. Nor did they say anything about his development at the check-up, nor have his nursery said anything (but they are very cautious about 'diagnosing' in Japan anyway.
Compared to how he was one month ago, 6 months ago, a year ago too, he HAS improved, albeit slowly.

Physically he is way ahead of dd even now when it comes to kicking and throwing a football and she is 3 years older! He does say words, he is improving, and I wonder if I should just leave it. I wake up in the night and think about it till my stomach hurts and I'm in tears, then I get up and he comes for a cuddle and smiles and says "ohio (morning) mummy" "yakult (name of drink) please mummy" "Thank you mummy" and I think I'm just imagining it all. Then he has a melt-down (could just be hungry? we are being impatient? he's 3? DD never really gave us trouble, so he seems bad? We know he is really independent, really head-strong and really stubborn - is it just this?) and DH raises his eyebrows and looks at me as if he's just found yet more evidence that he's not 'normal'.

Anyway, sorry to go on and on. I just want some advice before I go to the professionals and make it all Official. A friend of mine had her son assessed a while ago in Japan by a non-bilingual specialist and he was diagnosed with autism - only to be told a few months later he wasn't autistic and I'm almost afraid to go to see anyone in case they label him with something that then marks him for the future.

Can anyone help?

Pennybubbly

I have been watching this thread for a while.
"My DS can follow instructions when he wants to . The washing-hands incidents, are as others have said, fairly typical it would seem. If I asked him to go and get his shoes, chances are he would."
wants to could also mean when he is able to process what has been said, which is not automatic for those who have APD.
Those who have APD can appear to be deaf when they are not able to process what they hear. The Ears hear, but the brain does not process the meaning of what it hears. There are many reasons why those who have APD do not process what they hear, and there is no cure, so young APDs become adult APDs. We just become better at developing and using coping strategies using alternative cognitive abilities to help fill in our auditory processing deficits.

Those who have APD also have poor sequencing skills, and poor short term memories, as their working memories are busy running the coping strategies we need to cope with our communication disability.

At your sons age there are many new communication and comprehension skills to learn and develop. For those who have APD learning the sound of a word is a problem in itself as we have to first process the whole sound of a word and then learn to reproduce the whole sound of that word, and at some point later create some form of association as to the meaning of that word. From the other end of communication is understanding what they mane when making a specific sound, or word. So making an association with a word may be comprehended before being able to reproduce that sound. (one of the problems of the tick box system of measuring the progress of children)

If there is a family history of APD, then an official diagnosis may be made before the age of maturation (7-8 years old) when children stop growing out of developmental problems.

One post on this thread suggested that having a listening disability as
"The not listening is classic ASD as they don't tune in to conversation"
Auditory Processing Disorder is separate clinically diagnosable condition.
Auditory Processing Disorder together with other sensory and motor control disorders can be co-morbid to and cause the behavior issues used to diagnose the wide range of issues on the Autistic Spectrum. So having as listening disability does not imply Autism as was suggested in the earlier post.

You may find the research article "Controlling the Chaos" published in APDUK Newsletter No1. of some interest.

Just wanted to warn you to cautious of spending too much time/money on auditory processing disorder. This is a blogpost from Dorothy Bishop who is the UKs leading researcher in child language disorders.
deevybee.blogspot.com/2011/03/where-commercial-and-clinical-interests.html
She warns that APD does not have established diagnostic criteria and the treatments are not well validated.

Dorothy Bishop is one of many leading UK researchers regarding language issues there are many more, On my Wikipedia user page I list some of their research paper collections.
The UK Medical Research Council in 2004 issued an APD pamphlet describing Auditory Processing Disorder. And Dorothy Bishop has worked with and written research papers with many of the UKs leading APD researchers in recent years. The new APD diagnostic tests developed by the UK Medical Research Council should in the near future become the basis of a new universal sound frequency based APD battery of diagnostic tests to replace the old language based test which came from the USA.
There have been many programs which have made claim to being the magic bullet or cure for APD, many of which are still available today, but none have an international medical research base for their claims. Most of these programs may be able to provide some limited help to some who have APD.

But if you are looking for an explanation for the problems which children who have a listening disability may be experiencing then, APD is the explanation, of the problems, and as yet there are no cures or magic bullet programs. Living with APD is about identifying the deficits you have and trying to work out the best ways to work around the problems, and have those around you understand the your communication needs, so that they are best able to provide the communication accommodations each APD may need. This has to be done on an individual basis.

The reality is that there are no magic bullet programs for the behaviour based diagnosis issues such as Dyslexia and the multiple issues on the Autistic Spectrum, medical research technology is not advanced enough to provide sufficient understanding of the underlying medical causes, this is still on the cutting edge of Scientific research, and APD is one of the new issues which has pushed medical research into unexplored areas, first identifying the problem, creating diagnostic tests, and may be developing a range of support programs based on this research.