2.4 and still no speech

[BlueberryPancake]

I posted here some time ago. My DS speech isn't developing, I was slightly worried about it until he was 2 but now at 2y4m he still has only 4 words: mum, yes, woof, and burp (don't ask). He has had two assessments with speech therapist who thinks that his behaviour,play, roleplay, social skills are good; has been refused on two occasions a full pêadiatric assessmement because there is only one area of concern, has had glue ear but is now clear, and has been seen by audiologist and ear nose throat specialist and nothing unusual found. He has some odd behaviour, but nothing big, and is very good socially with adults and other kids.

Am I missing something? Is there another medical professional I should see? Any advice from parents of late speaker as to what to do next? He is starting at pre-school two mornings a week in September and I am getting an assessment to see if he couldpôssibly get one-to-one but it's unlikely as there is only 'one area of concern'.

He doesn't imitate sound much; has no "almost" words. it's not that we don't understand him - he doesn't try to imitate sounds.

Any advice welcome!

Hi, my ds is a very late talker as well, he is now 3.2 and saying much more but his speech is very unclear. I found the Hanen course very helpful, you can get the course book online I think, maybe have a look at that.

Oh and speech therapy is only starting at 2 and a half in our area, so he should be getting some sessions in September ish. althou I have been told they are group sessions, and one-to-one isn't before they are 3 years old.

The idea of the Hanen approach is that you are your child's best speech therapist, and teaches you what to do. Very helpful IME.

Are you worried about ASD? It may be unlikely if the paed feels behaviour and social skills are ok. Have you tried the CHAT test with him ?

Yes Hanen is great - whatever the issue is

sorry I posted second post before your reply appeared very slow web access at the mo;) yes I had heard of that method but will get ontoit more seriously.

We received various advice from speech therapist about how tocommunicate; speak, interact and encourage communications from him which we put into practice all the time, such as speaking in short sentences and not ask too many questions, and more. DH is primary school teacher and has lots of experience with (older) children with speech problems. But we are short of something as it doesn't seem to be enough.

Yes I was a bit worried about ASD, as he did have some odd behaviour such as being very interested in shapes/numbers/puzzles but that has settled down. Should I insist again on a full developmental assessment? Could you please tell me what CHAT is?

can ds blow out ,pucker uor p use a straw ?

DD2 is 2.2yr and for the last couple of months we have used PECS and her speech is coming on really well now. I think having a visual picture as well as the word has reinforced it for her and now she'll attempt to say a lot more. We have new words every day and PECS is also helping with her consistency with the words. DD2 has a lot of other issues, but just wanted to say the PECS has brought her speech on brilliantly.

yes he can blow candles, use a straw, blow kisses, and swallow normally. He can (sometimes) also imitate mono-sillabic sounds like 'b' or 'a' or 'l' or 'g' but he doesn't imitate 'bye bye'.

CHAT here

www.nas.org.uk/nas/jsp/polopoly.jsp?d=1048&a=2226

will post more later - bit hectic here !

I posted a reply to the thread you started on 2nd June suggesting Hanen "It Takes Two to Talk".

Presumably you still feel he has good receptive speech but isn't imitating?

Yes Lingle, but it is q very expensive book to buy, and couldn't find it second hand. Will buy it soon.

He still has good receptive speech, he understands a lot and he is clear about zhat he likes and dislikes. He is much morephysical now then he was just a few months ago, but there is no new words at all.

One just started on Ebay. I think they usually go for about £20. Here
cgi.ebay.co.uk/It-Takes-Two-To-Talk-by-Pepper-Weizman-rare-Hanen_W0QQitemZ190327335483Q QcmdZViewItemQQptZUKBooksEducationalTextbooksEducationalTextbooksGL?hash=item2c5064aa3b&_trksid= p3286.c0.m14

I'd thought of our kids as similar but really your son's profile is the opposite of mine. Mine had poor understanding but excellent imitation skills. Pity we can't combine them!

I suppose all you can do is keep observing, keep using the basic techniques supplemented by Hanen when you get it, and keep trying to figure out what it is that's causing the block (in my case it turned out that there was a fancy name for the special thing I'd observed- that he seemed to hear language as melody). I guess the glue ear history has to be factored in?

He can imitate melody very well, but using a kind of 'n' sound. He can hum loads of nursery rhymes, and will imitate the rhythm of words with no other sounds but 'n'. If I say 'good night Billy' h'll say 'n n n n' with the correct intonation and rhythm. Is that making sense?

when he "says" that - "n n n n" in the example you just gave me. Is he imitating "good night Billy"? Or is he imitating a response - "good night mummy"?

I think it's good night mummy, but who knows. It might be wishful thinking. Sometimes I think he believes he is actually speaking and expects us to understand his huming. He obviously gets frustrated that we don't understand him but isn't that true of every two year old? he used to have tentrums but not so many now, and he knows a few signs if he's hungry or thirsty, but it is rendom if he uses them or not.

I would keep going with the signing found that once ds realised that he could ask and get what he wanted with them made for a lot kess frustrations all round.

I dunno Blueberry. You read the Sowell book didn't you? I've been on the forum that's associated with his book - it's run by Professor Camrata - and virtually all the parents who go to see Camrata for a second opinion (many believe their kids to have been misdiagnosed with autism) report that there are some receptive problems as well as expressive problems (presumably some also find that their kid does have ASD after all but mysteriously those people never pipe up on the forum again............).

Check out the links on this thread if you want to home in and re-examine his receptive language skills....receptive language delay would be quite a common story for kids like ours with very "jagged" developmental profiles (shapes and numbers early, speech late)

www.mumsnet.com/Talk?topicid=special_needs&threadid=750157-Radio-programmes-on-rec eptive-language-delay-www-teachmetotalk-com#15322394

www.mumsnet.com/Talk?topicid=special_ needs&threadid=752062-another-receptive-language-programme-on-the-radio-with-the-annoying#15361854

Hopefully the radio programmes are still online. They feature two therapists talking about how hard it is to spot receptive language issues (lots of stuff about parents in denial - you'll see some of us found it annoying so I produced a big summary).

Did you get any detailed information/report from anyone about his language delay? Even if the paed feels behaviour etc is fine, at this age you need to get a better answer than 'It's just language'. Does he imitate well in other respects? Will he copy what you are doing without much prompting? Will he engage in your activity easily and readily share attention with you?

my ds1 did not start speaking till 2y9m (well apart from hello, dada, no) - definitely know as in hosp having just had ds2, and ds1 could still not say anything-, but good communication - i.e. bring books, drag me to items. did a lot of humming, especially while eating! a year on, and his talking is pretty good now, although people still find it hard to understand sometimes, its quite amazing for such a short time. has difficulty we some sounds, e.g. flower is bower, and cute things like computer is puter, but still vocab is quite large. but am sure it will continue. now being assessed for asd. his cousin however, did not talk till 2y6m and is now absolutely fine, and no problems at all. if he has understanding i'm sure it will come. We were given the same advise from the speech therapist, after it was found he had glue ear (having it checked tomorrow, but think it cleared up now). i tend to think it helped. his still not receiving any support from SALT, not sure if he will..

We had detailed report from salt, and at the two sessions with them he was playing fine, doing lots of roleplay, communicating (non-verbal) with therapist well during play, and responding well to instructions, as well as understanding cause and effect. But there is no diagnosis as such, just that all the signs are there to show that he should start speaking soon. But that was months ago now!

Cyberseraph, that's partly my reason for asking the question here in the first place. Should I now take my claws out and start being the pushy mum (I know I can do that!) and try to get more answers, dig deeper, try to see if there IS an underlying cause or if he's just one of those kids who will talk later. If it's ASD then be it, at least we'll know and will take the right course of action.

He is a lively boy, he tries so hard to talk, his eye contact is excellent, and I did the CHAT test and no areas of concern at all, not a single question is negative.

So maybe it really is just an expressive language delay? He certainly shares the jagged developmental profile (shapes/letters early - talking late) with ASD kids but that's not a sign of ASD per se - just means that he has something in common with ASD kids.

Sorry to exhaust you but I'm going to post one more link - it's to a Greenspan paper that sets out (i) how he recognises an expressive language delay that will essentially take care of itself and (ii) why "wait and see" is usually not good advice.

It is linked to here.

www.mumsnet.com/Talk?topicid=special_needs&threadid=797788-This-Greenspan-article-is-so-g ood-it-deserves-its-own#16281055