Is lingle around?

[Landladymews2]

Hi I was wondering if she is still around as o wanted to ask her about her DS1 and his receptive language delay. I hope she’s still around!

On the question of delay v disorder, see page 37 of this presentation:

www.afasic.org.uk/wp-content/uploads/2018/02/Professor-Dorothy-Bishop-Presentation.pdf

Dorothy Bishop considered there isn’t much evidence for a difference between them!

@essexmum777 I’m so pleased that he’s doing well now. That must be such a huge relief for you! I’m guessing you must have read the book by Stephen Camarata? There’s also one by Thomas Sowell that I think focuses on those late talkers that end up being very academically gifted which by the sounds of things applies to your son.

I guess it’s probably hard to know whether the intensive speech therapy helped or whether it was just about his receptive language developing at a point that he was finally ready.

@DarkMintChocolate Interesting, thank you. What is a spikey vs flat profile?

A spiky profile is when say WISC 5 or some other assessment looking at a number of areas of cognitive functioning is done on a child; and the child scores average or high on some subtests (say non verbal reasoning), but low on other subtests (say those that rely on language abilities) - the profile, you might expect in a child with non verbal intelligence within the normal range; but verbal IQ pulled down by a language disorder. You’d expect the opposite with a child with dyspraxia - good verbal IQ, but non verbal IQ pulled down by the dyspraxia.

A flat profile is where scores on the subtests are around the same level. So, a child with learning disabilities might be expected to have scores on the 1st percentile across all subtests, because language is commensurate with the intelligence below the average range.

Some old threads with posts from people the OPmight want to follow
Moondog is my recommendation.
This is 3years old
www.mumsnet.com/Talk/special_needs/667819-2-step-instructions-at-3-3-DS2-3-3-receptive?pg=2

Age 3
www.mumsnet.com/Talk/behaviour_development/595585-does-any-body-have-older-toddlers-kids-with-speech-delay

I still find this hard to read but this was my first post and it’s the same crowd of excellent posters. Age 3.

Hard to believe he’s 15 now and doing great. In the local football U15 “B” team :)

Sorry here -first post
www.mumsnet.com/Talk/behaviour_development/600616-is-ds2-s-musicality-hindering-his-speech-development

Op I name changed to “linglette” for quite a while so you could look for threads started by that poster.

I think it would be lovely if this board stayed busier again.

Those threads are a blast from the past. So many of the 'old' names.

Such good people.

@lingle thank you so muce. I’m guessing you weren’t posting in the 18month- 2 year period when the language explosion happened. I’d love to know what was happening then but I will take whatever I can get!

Ds1 had the explosion around 2 so I forgot about it
Ds2 around 3.6

But their “solid” language did appear in the same order as the books /Laura say it should. I understand this is typical.
“Hyper-advanced” stuff they did like singing before 12 months and spelling out words at 2 .......all that stuff involves language but it is not real language acquisition. It’s a sort of playing with language. So with ds2 I removed music and writing from his life as much as I could. It helped. As a parent it is super-tempting to latch on to the advanced stuff but the paediatrician said “that will still be there for him later” and she was quite right on that one.

Thanks!

If I’m right about the early years then receptive language was non existent at 18 months, you started working on it at around this age and in DS1 case he was was showing understanding and even using some words 6 months after you started working on it and DS2 a bit later around 3.6. So DS1 had a 6 month delay in understanding and first words and DS2 had a 2 year delay, as they say that they should be understanding a few basic things by 18 months and have a couple of words. After the language explosion the progression was then steady until they caught up around school age?

DS1 yes. I adored him and was shocked and affronted when a friend and a speech therapist relative each pointed out that his language at 18 months wasn't there but should be. Apparently they should understand quite a lot at 18 months (Laura's stuff will have it).

DS2 a lot later. 3.6 is v late. Much more of a big deal.

After the language explosions, progress was indeed steady in both boys and the true language skills developed in the "correct" order. But delay is never consequence-free because they have missed out on lots of practice. So it's like being introduced to, say, ice-skating at age 15 instead of age 5 (you can probably draw a better analogy). You aren't quite a "native" in the same way. So as a mother you have to try to go deep down below the language (don't get sidetracked by ASD fear - every language delay will have consequences for the nature of interactions - how could it not?).

With the benefit of hindsight, I failed in my duty as a parent to set aside/"rise above" my own fears about ASD as I could have got down to the sensory aspects of the imbalance earlier than I did. We might then have had fewer negative experiences and, ultimately, less anxiety. But I got away with it (just). The anxiety faded.

Yes Laura Mize is certainly very adamant that understanding should be there around 12 months and if it isn’t there by 18 months there’s a serious problem.

Im guessing that you started using the Hanen book and Teach me to Listen and Obey by Laura Mize at around 18 months when the problem was identified and you would credit those techniques with leading to the language explosion at 2 and 3.5 rather than it being that they simply weren’t ready any earlier and would have always bloomed a bit late. That’s an impossible question to answer I know!

I was watching my son babbling this morning and I think he perhaps does understand the function of speech because when he babbles it’s not just that he’s trying to make sounds, at times he’s very expressive and it really seems like he’s trying to tell a story in his baby language. He reminds me a bit of the stereotype of Italians- he’s quite loud and passionate and gesticulates and uses a lot of different facial expressions. He will also stop for a bit as if waiting for me to respond. He’s just not connecting words with meaning yet for some reason.

" guessing that you started using the Hanen book and Teach me to Listen and Obey by Laura Mize at around 18 months when the problem was identified and you would credit those techniques with leading to the language explosion at 2 and 3.5 rather than it being that they simply weren’t ready any earlier and would have always bloomed a bit late. That’s an impossible question to answer I know!"

With DS1 there was nothing formal, no intervention, I just thought about it a bit but didn't buy any books or anything. noone got involved.

With DS2 I started using the books/advice at around 3 years.

I would not credit either child's language explosion to any intervention whatsoever. I suppose conceivably the "clearing the ground of bad habits" might operate to unblock or unkink the pipe, as it were. But the language juices were always there, trying to flow through the pipe.

Whereas there are some children with whom you could intervene perfectly from day 1 but there will never be a language explosion.

Biological potential plays a big part.

What I absolutely credit to intervention is the fact that DS2 is pretty well-balanced, well-liked and not anxious. In contrast, my brother (similar biological starting point) is lonely and tends to monologue about his special interests and alienate people :(

:)

" I was watching my son babbling this morning and I think he perhaps does understand the function of speech because when he babbles it’s not just that he’s trying to make sounds, at times he’s very expressive and it really seems like he’s trying to tell a story in his baby language. He reminds me a bit of the stereotype of Italians- he’s quite loud and passionate and gesticulates and uses a lot of different facial expressions. He will also stop for a bit as if waiting for me to respond. He’s just not connecting words with meaning yet for some reason."

.... but IF it had turned out that my children had NOT had the biological potential for a language explosion then the interventions I engaged in would still have
(i) done no harm
(ii) increased our bond.
(iii) been a solid foundation that would make other deeper interventions (pecs, makaton, intensive ABA) more effective and easier/quicker for me to understand and implement.

Hanen, Laura Mize, all that stuff - it is about adjusting your parenting at the end of the day. Adjustments that seem counter-intuitive.

You need to do ALL the "do no harm" stuff first. It may be enough to do the trick, or it may be a first step.

@lingle Wow that’s interesting. Your brother sounds exactly like my DH’s eldest brother! My MIL has always said that he was a ‘late talker’ and that his sister who was a year younger then him started talking first. When I asked her about it recently however she said she meant that he had words at 18 months but didn’t use them much as he had a stammer which they went on to get him therapy for at 6.

He sounds the same in that his brother monologues about his own interests. DH is very sociable and not someone you would ever call autistic but he has very strong echolalia, I wonder if there is something in all of that!

.... a sensible GP said to me at one point "look, maybe this is just what normal looks like in your family...."

Here is what intervention and sheer good luck in childhood can change:

1. my brother, didn't talk till 3, relatively happy because he found some passions. unable to play his chosen sport in a team because got too upset when others misbehaved or bent rules. But now has a second job as a BBC commentator on said sport where his monologue style works perfectly - so communicates in own way. A loving son, brother and uncle but has missed out.

1. DS2, also didn't talk till 3, but parents had better marriage, we weren't ashamed, we had the benefit of advice from professionals books and mumsnet, he had kids on the street whose childminders made them incude him whilst he was learning. Most of all he had a great big brother.

My mother once observed - I suspect correctly- that things would have worked out better for my brother had he been the younger child.

So we change what we can..... learn not to let the fear of what we can't distort our parenting. That's the name of the game

... so DS2 and his uncle are both sports geeks with encyclopediac knowledge of chosen sport.

But DS2, unlike his uncle, can also play said sport as an accepted member of a team.

and that is what (i) sheer good luck in his early years environment and (ii) intervention have done for DS2.

"DH is very sociable and not someone you would ever call autistic but he has very strong echolalia, I wonder if there is something in all of that!"

of course there is.