Window of Opportunity Will Be Lost???

[ChocolateDippedSproutHater]

After watching Protecting Our Children, BBC2 about a little boy with development delays and speech delays I am worried about my DS.

"They were told Toby had a developmental age of 12-24 months compared with his actual age of three years and eight months. A child like Toby "only has another six months before that window of opportunity to catch up with his peers will be lost".

My DS has a severe speech disorder, he is 8 and making virtually no progress in speech therapy. I have been worried about this for a long time (so hearing that was like a punch in the face, I felt winded) but now am wondering if this 'window' has been lost. DS seems to have massive gaps in his ability to make speech sounds (he has an additional diagnosis of Hypermobility Syndrome which we've been told is probably also hindering his speech) but there are areas which he just hasn't learnt naturally...or at all.

So, is this true, about the window of opportunity and does it apply to speech as well as physical development?
TIA

I've only heard of a window of opportunity when speech is referred to, but Only on the sence that language absorption is "naturally" happening during that window, and language learnt after that window is specifically taught.

This doesn't mean that progress cannot be made.

IMO it means methods need to be reviewed if progress isn't being made.

I think programmes like this are upsetting at best, and I'm not convinced they reflect real life. Where it takes years of fighting to get a diagnosis, and then a few more years to get the help dc needs. By which time any "window of opportunity" has long since passed and parents are made to feel guilty not aimed at parents of SN DCs.

I agree that therapy or method of work needs to be reviewed if progress is not made.

The brain is plastic hence lots of opportunities to change until early teens I was told.

Of course early intervention is best, ideal around 2-3years of age but please don't be discouraged.

That statement doesn't hold true fr DS who also has sld, we started working with him more intensively after he turned 3 and he still makes leaps of progress.

I seem to remember ds 2 and 3's SALT telling me that by 7-8 you would have a pretty clear picture of how their speech would turn out. However, Ds2 (ASD & MLD) was at that age saying mainly 2 sometimes 3 word sentences - now he's pretty much fluent albeit with a few made up words and the odd bit of muddled grammar but he can easily be understood by strangers.

Music therapy was hugely influential in his progress.

Never say never - no two children are the same

That SW was talking rubbish. It is always easier to learn things the younger you are, and a week of intervention at 3 will need 2 weeks at 8.

Nothing is lost. If the brain couldn't change and adapt at all in later years then there would be no hope for recovery for adults with brain injuries and OT and SALT can do wonders often.

When you brain is developing you can influence how it develops, - when it is more set you can teach it how to adapt.

A bit like learning a musical instrument, it is easier the younger you start but it doesn't mean an adult can't ever learn one.

But that comment peed me right off too because that would be agencies using window of opportunity purely for their own agenda. They didn't give a fig about ds and his window.

Oh it's bollocks. DS1 has made enormous progress in the last 18 months and he's 12 now. I spent a lot of worry-time when he was little thinking that if we didn't have everything sorted by the time he was 5 then he would be a lost cause.

What did help was getting some real basics established- especially imitation. He finally understood/'got' copying and imitation when he was 8 - after that he was able to learn a lot faster. Prior to that everything had to be taught hand over hand which was slow.

I know very little about this but I do know that previous theories of how the brain developed had a notion that there where certain time frames for doing things and after that time frame you lost that opportunity. More recently however, theories about the brain are more focused on its plasticity and that it is always changing and developing. Therefore the idea of a window of opportunity re: development is part of the older, less flexible, ideas about the brain

Dont agree at all OP.

New research has proven that new neural pathways can be created - even in patients who have had major strokes/brain damage. Certainly the earlier the intervention the better, but our brains dont stop assimilating new things after the age of 8!!!

Thanks everyone for the replies. I feel better now! I completely agree with Justabouthadenough's last paragraph - and that is exactly what has happened to us. By the time DS had any therapy he was over 4.
I am in the process of booking an assessment with a private S&L therapist to get an honest opinion on DS's speech.

Agree with everyone else. Its an outmoded theory from back when brain plasticity wasn't well researched and understood.

I have two friends that work at different rehab centres for adults who have acquired brain injury or have suffered strokes and they have both told me that the human brain is capable of adapting and creating new neural pathways 'regardless of age'. One of them specifically works with patients who have lost their speech.

This was really reassuring to me when our original - and ancient - SENCO told me that we had likely missed the window of intervention for ds1, as he wasn't dxd before the age of 7, so anything that happened from then on was basically damage limitation.

The agencies in that programme had a socia/political agenda - adoption after 4 years is almost impossible as the "market" demand is for babies/toddlers.

Theraputic treatments for brain development are another issue entirely, and weren't the social worker's priority. (They didn't pt the wee lad on an intensive 40 hour a week aba programme did they?)

Without help as kids get older the gap between an sen child and their peers gets wider. It's easier for a variety of reasons as others have said to help chldren as young as possible, especially as the risks to a child's self-esteem grow as they get older. Therapies may work faster the younger a child is.

BUT the brain doesn't fully mature until around 25 - that's a massive "window of opportunity" and even after that people continue to learn or programmes for literacy like toe by toe wouldn't be so effective (literacy programme used in prisons). Neither would stroke victims be able to make such progress.

My sister is 31 but we are trying a neurological therapy for her this year to improve executive that hadn't been invented when she was a kid. She's expected to benefit.

Keep calm and carry on (fighting!) should be the motto for all of us on this board.

I agree it's a social thing - There is a really good book called Unstrange Minds by Roy Richard Grinker and in it he discusses the origin of the view that child development 'ends' at age 3 and he concludes that as there is no scientific evidence to back this view, it is a belief held by society for its own reasons - he is an anthropologist so he has some really interesting things to say about society and autism

Its been mentioned on here before but the Norman Doidge book 'The brain that changes itself' is another one that covers recent discoveries regarding plasticity of the brain and one of the few books that made me feel slightly optimistic :)

DS is 5 and he did not get good intervention until he was nearly 4 (except what we learnt to do ourselves). His progress is steadily upwards and shows no sign of halting just because he has turned 5. I also hear lots of stories of older children who get GCSEs at 18-19 rather than 16, which is why extending education to 25 for SEN will be great as it will remove that race to the finish line before statements are pulled.
DS has ASD so thats mostly what I read about and there is no clear evidence to show that children who get intervention later do not gain from it.
However in your shoes I would also be looking into technology such as ipads with communication software etc as if speech does not come, that should not mean that learning and communication cannot happen via other means.
You might want to push for an assessment at somewhere like ICAN to get a more specialist view on whats going on / what can be done.

Just want to back up what's been said.
I too was worried about this as it was said to me.
All I can go on is my DS who is 8-he has severe speech/communication issues,but the progress he has made,particularly in the last year has been amazing !

I think some people believe these statements,but I have seen it's not true

tbh I think it is just the silly too non-verbal for SALT for two years and then all of a sudden too verbal for SALT thing.

It is just a tool to beat parents with and justify provision, or not.

So, he's young, give him time etc. no point in intervention so early and then oh, he's too old for intervention so no point etc.

excuses, excuses & kicking the can down the road. It'd be really refreshing to hear some honest alternatives such as:-

1/ Try again next april when we get the new budget
2/ I don't know how to help
3/ I don't want to help
4/ The PCT has overspent on X so there's nought left for you.
5/ There are 650 kids ahead of you on my list - go private or your kid will never be helped.

Although it wouldn't be pleasant, like ripping off a plaster, parents wouldn't spend 18 years living in false hope that the state will eventually help their kids iykwim. SEN is hard enough but the system makes it much tougher than it needs to be emotionally.

Ds was completely non verbal till he was 8.5yrs, we can't shut him up now
The progress he has made in the last couple of years is astounding, we now know that he can read.
Behaviourally he is much improved because he is not so frustrated.
We never in our wildest dreams thought that he would progress so much.
This is after a very early asd diagnosis, huge amounts of intervention.
Don't give up hope op.

Agree with bochead

My DS had a big language spurt between 4.5 and 5, please don't let some non-medical politically motivated sweeping statement upset you.

Completely agree Bochead re:honesty. would much rather have been told "we can't justify continuing SALT to help your child's social communication skills as he talks fluently in sentences, but there are still areas of concern" than "he's tested with normal range. brilliant news. bye bye!"

Op I agonise over the whole window of developmentmental opportunity thing too. I guess it is more accurate to say that the later the intervention the more ground a dc has to cover.
This thread has lifted my spirits enormously. Thank you everyone.

Thank you Chocolate for raising this question - I had the exact same reaction when I saw the SW say this on the programme. Thanks too everyone for your uplifiting responses. My DD has just turned 4 and is non-verbal - this thread gives me hope

My ds (4.11) was pretty much non-verbal until about 6 months ago and the progress he has made is amazing - now up to 3 and 4 word sentences although doesn't always get the tense or structure right. He had SALT every 2 weeks since he was 2 and hated it and refused to take part in the sessions. His progress has only come now he has "grown up" a bit and wants to do it iyswim. Suppose what I'm trying to say is you can throw all the therapy you want at a child but if they aren't ready to take it on board then there is really no point. Looking back now I sometimes wish we had left the SALT for 18mths rather than force him but I didn't want to drop out of the system.

So yes the later the intervention the more ground to cover BUT the child is usually more compliant so progresses faster imo.

Thank you all so much for the replies, I feel much better about things now. Waiting for the private speech therapist to get back to me after she has spoken to DS's NHS therapist to see what kind of plan they've got for him. That will be interesting, because I don't know if they've even got a plan.

DS's problems seem to me to be mostly physical, ie. not being able to produce the speech sounds, but I feel there is something else going on as well. Sometimes he can make a sound perfectly the first time he tries, but he cannot reproduce that sound correctly. Most of the time he cannot tell the difference between two sounds, like 'g' and 'c' . He cannot blend sounds very well, if at all and gets easily confused/can't hear which sound he is supposed to be making. Also, he still says Me am, not I am.

DS works very hard at speech therapy, always co-operates and is willing to try at home and at clinic. He has made virtually zero progress, still working on the same two sounds he started on at age 4.

DD (9) who started therapy at the same time as DS has come on in leaps and bounds, but, she still has areas of concern so needs another assessment. For example, she says 'hellbellls' instead of elbows, 'afused' for confused, 'bisketti' for spaghetti, some letter sounds are still unclear but on the whole she is understood most of the time.

If DS could get his speech up to the same level as DD, we would be delighted, but, if he is unlikely to make progress, then I would like to stop therapy for a while, give him a break and take the pressure off him (he has so many other health problems and we always seem to be at hospital/clinic appointments) and maybe think about communication aids or some other ways to communicate.