3 year old Speech delayed son waking multiple times at night

[Tullarose]

Hello

I am hoping to get a bit of advice. My son has speech delay due to glue ear. After 3 operations his ears are clear (touch wood) of infection however he is behind with his speech by @18 months.
Speech therapists, PRESENS, SENCO, Health Visitor and paediatrician are all working together to get him speaking before school. He has about 5-10 words, that's including sign language words.
My concern is that for the last 5-6 weeks he has started to wake around 4-5 times at night. It's usually the same times every night. Because he is not able to communicate his needs we have no idea why he keeps waking. My husband and I both work full time and are really tired.

Previously he was a very good sleeper - going through from @7.30pm to 6/6.30am with a 1.5 nap during the day.
Has anyone else experienced this? Or any ideas what it could be and how I can make the situation better?

Any suggestions would be greatly appreciated.

Thanks

'Speech therapists, PRESENS, SENCO, Health Visitor and paediatrician are all working together to get him speaking before school'

How? What are they actually doing?

Tullarose

Otitis Media with Effusion (glue ear) is a cause of Auditory Processing Disorder (APD) which would be the underlying cause of the Delay.

I think you might be best advised as to find out how much the professionals actually know about each of these issues in relation to their areas of specialisation. Unfortunately sometimes it can be very little, and you may end up knowing more than they do.

Tullarose

sorry to post a second time but i was having internet technical issues a few moments ago.
Many young children who have APD can experience sleep problems, and sometimes these issue can become a life long problem. For others thye are able to develop strategies to work around the issue, and until the age of maturation 5-8 years of age it is not really possible to predict whether it will be short term problem or a life long problem.

Me again the links i was trying to provide earlier
CiteULike Group Audiology and Auditory Processing Disorder - library
and CiteULike Group Speech and Language Pathology - library

and again I forgot this one, sorry my APD does not cope too well with the unexpected sometimes.
CiteULike Group Special Education library

Hi all
Thank you for your replies.
@Starlight - the paediatrian was an assessment for other things e.g. Autism. The health visitor helps with advice and ensures things are being kept on track. The SENCO at nursery is the sensory specialist and helps to enhance the communication with my son & nursey employees. PRESENS get involved when children are 2.5 with the aim to get your Childs speech up to level b4 school. He has a helper who goes in once a week who completes speech therapy related play activities with him.
The thing I haven't found great is the speech therapy sessions but this is mainly because the appointments are short - I think Nhs budgets in this area have been slashed significantly.
@Dolfrog - after 2 years of trying to resolve my son's glue ear issues I have certainly learnt a lot!