speech delays when do they improve?

[sandiy]

My gorgeous boy aged 7,has a speech delay. Hes had SALT since 3 years old.
He is a normal healthy chap who just can t speak clearly.Its never been a problem.However, the older he gets and the more his vocabulary increases the less he is understood.He is very popular has tons of friends,he has just started to realise that people don t understand him and become embarrased
Does any one have an older child whos been there or can offer advice Thanks

Hi Sandiy, my son is 11 and like your son was recognised as having a speech delay at the same age, we thought nothing of it and took the advice from his nursery/ teachers / SALT. I think we were always under the belief his speech would get better as he got older and it was one of those things (he suffered with ear infections continously when he was around 18months to 3 yrs old). However 8 years on his delay is now a speech disorder and he struggles massively formulating sentences, holding conversations and recalling the right words so he can converse. We have had him tested for ASD twice and we are told he is not ASD, he has just now been diagnosed with dyslexia after having our own private SALT assessment and pestering the Local EP to assess for dyslexia and guess what now they have said he is dyslexic despite being under their care for 8 years. Not sure about your son but our son's main area of difficulty is word finding and poor working memory our private SALT has assessed him to be equivalent to that of a 5yr old, so it is not surprising he has speech problems. I feel for my son as he goes to secondary school in September and all his friends are leaps and bounds ahead of him in confidence as they get older, where as my son stays the same hardly talking as like your son feels embrassed as he knows people don't understand what he is trying to say other than his family. When he talks to us and we are patiently waiting for him to explain what he wants to say he will just turn around and say forget it or we finish the sentence for him as we can see his frustration. We had him tested for Auditory Processing Disorder at GOSH as we were convinced this was his problem, but after a year battle to get him seen we were told he had traits of APD so we are back to square one in how we can help him. All I know is 8 years on we no longer think his speech is going to get better as we did in the early days and I am forever researching in ways to help but unless you have alot of money for private therapy / assessments which we do not, then we rely on the thin ground of the NHS and LEA which are both useless in my opinion. We are fighting the LEA now over refusal of a statement and a tribunal has been set becuase of his SLD needs it, despite the opposite opinions of the LEA. So the only advice I can give is don't rely on the professionals, challenge everything and I mean everything such as his IEP's until you are happy, we have only just started to do this as I took the teachers "he will be ok" advice literally and thought he would one day just talk normally. Have your own private SALT in case the LEA SALT is missing anything like they did with my son regarding dyslexia and possible APD. Please be advised this is just my opinion and only relates to our son as I do not know your son's actual difficulties. Hope some of this helps
Nick

Has he been seen by a specialist SLT? My DD was born with a cleft palate which has been repaired several times. Clefts can give VPI (velopharyngeal insufficiency) and she is also hypernasal. Her articulation has also been caused by a lot glottal sounds due to Tongue positioning. Being physically "Tongue tied" can also be very problematic. We worked on a EPG plate attached to a computer to work on her Tongue placement in her mouth for certain sounds. She is off on an outward bound Speech course in July to work on her areas of weakness. She is 12. I should also say that soft palate issues can go undetected. Do you know what sounds he finds difficult? We are terrible nags with DD to get her to enunciate correctly. But it's for her benefit at the end of the day.

DD also suffered with VPI - she did not have a cleft, but she did have a non-funtioning soft palate meaning she was physically incapable of making most speech sounds - the effect was to prevent her from controlling the airflow in her mouth; air continually escaped down her nose (and food occasionally came up through her nose). If she wanted to blow out candles, for example, she would have to hold her nose so that all the air went through her mouth otherwise there wasn't enough pressure to do the job.
Does your DS have any physical difficulties with oral activities?

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