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insegnante
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| Posted: Jan 14 2008 at 11:02pm | IP Logged
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Hi,
Our second son, who turned 3 this past August, is definitely not using language (or pronouncing words) at a "normal" level for his age. I'm really bad at keeping it short and will probably drive people to tune out  I thought I would just inquire if anyone had a child with a similar type of delay to see if there might be some conversation possible.
Basically, he said his first word at the same age as his brother (about 9 1/2 months.) By age 2, he had a "normal" amount of words he'd used at some point, but a lot fewer than his brother and not so many in regular use. Most of the year he was 2 there wasn't much new verbal development at all, other than adding some new vocabulary over time. He barely if ever combined words beyond hi-name, bye-name, and readymade phrases (like "all done.") Beginning just before he turned 3 and in the months since he has made the kind of progress that I would have expected in those previous months, using lots more nouns, then combining more words in a more understanding way, using more adjectives and verbs, learning his colors.
He did have an iron deficiency we were following/treating from about 18 or 21 months (my memory is awful lately; pregnant with #3!) to 28 months. Not just hemoglobin, but iron; it didn't resolve with dietary change or with supplements, we even were sent to a hematologist, and shortly after we stopped the supplements on doctor's advice, his iron level improved. I wonder if it could have had any relation since it was during that period I was kind of expecting a "language explosion" that never came. He never showed other signs of being impaired by the low iron.
But I don't think he's anywhere near "caught up" with his typical agemates, if that matters. We've been on the "watching him for progress" plan since his well visit in August, and like I said there's been plenty. Had we chosen to take a referral to a professional, I'd be surprised if they somehow would have led him to significantly more progress than this. At least at the time, I didn't think he would do well with a stranger trying to "help" him with this, at least not if she challenged him the way our (normally very likable) pediatrician did at the time.
He does use subject-verb-object sentences ("[name] draw a picture a [whatever]," "I broke it," "Mommy's eating food") sometimes, but it seems to me as if it's hard for him to really get comfortable with how phrases and sentences go, and to put all those words together in even approximately proper places. It's been a while since he first used those types of sentences and they're not really a typical part of his daily speech yet. He knows at least seven colors and regularly points them out, but while my husband says he has sometimes recently answered "What color is this?" I have never witnessed it. If you ask where is the blue one or if you ask if something is a color it's not, he will respond properly.
For months, I've thought pretty consistently that his spoken language (and generally, his pronunciation) have seemed like that of a typical child about 9 months younger than he is. I think his brother's a bit on the verbally advanced side, and he's usually about a year behind where his brother was.
I do think his receptive language is better than his expressive, but not sure how much. One of the more promising things is that he can understand what's going on in a book enough to reword it into his own grammar instead of just remembering the words we read him: "No, cow not a bird's mother!" He is sitting still for stories and "reading" them to himself, and he is clearly pleased to communicate verbally to the best of his ability.
So then there's even more details I will spare anyone who's managed to read all this, more about pediatrician input so far and what if anything might we "do about" this next, etc. I figure if someone has had a child with similar issues then maybe I'll get into that. Pointers to books, other web sites, etc. appreciated.
Btw, no other indicators of autism spectrum disorders, and the pediatrician didn't seem to think the hearing test would work for him at his last well visit, but that was almost five months ago so that should probably be reconsidered.
Sorry for the length!
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Theresa
mommy to three boys, 3/02, 8/04, and 9/10, and a girl, 8/08
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Lara Sauer
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| Posted: Jan 15 2008 at 8:43am | IP Logged
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Hi Theresa,
My oldest son, who is now 15 and quite articulate, (perhaps too articulate??) was also a very late talker. At the age of 3 he basically only said Hi Ma, Hi Da, and Hi Jaa (Jack). I, too, was concerned about his language development, looking into different scenarios, even checking to see if he was tongue tied. However, in all other ways he was a normal and very happy child. He always had a bright sunshiny smile and he would giggle and giggle and giggle. Sometimes I thought that alone would drive me crazy. His brother is 22 months younger than him and was verbal at a very young age. He and my oldest basically learned to speak at the same time. However, my oldest was not conversant at all until he was nearly seven. It was his language development, or lack thereof that initiated our journey toward homeschooling. From very early on, you had to ask him direct yes and no questions, one at a time for him to be able to follow the conversation. He almost never initiated a conversation on his own, and he probably only started doing that comfortably at around the age of 11 or 12. This is not to say that he wasn't engaging. It is simply that he engaged non-verbally. As I said he was ordinarily a very happy and joy-filled little boy. However, he would become easily frustrated, to the point of tears, if he couldn't understand the instructions. He could also throw some pretty spectacular temper tantrums. I think these came about because of his lack of verbal expression. At the age of 15, he is still working on controlling this sensitive side of his nature. Happily, however, he seems to have his more explosive side under control!
In spite of all this, I knew there was nothing wrong with his hearing, because although he couldn't use words well, he could sing on key. My husband and I well remember our 18 month old singing the "alleluia" from Mass. He couldn't say the words, but he definitely knew the melody. Alot of his language development became clearer to me in the last year or so. Andrew has been taking music lessons, piano, clarinet, and some French horn since he was 11 or so. He has always had a good ear for music, so the lessons have come easily for him. However, about a year ago, for no real reason whatsoever, I played a note on the piano and asked Andrew is he knew what note it was. He said yes and then proceededed to tell me the correct note. So I played around with some more notes and then some scales and finally some chords only to discover that he had absolutely perfect pitch. For the next few weeks, I discovered more and more about him that really helped be to understand so much. He hears the pitch of voices, airplanes flying by, cars driving past, yelling and screaming kids, the tea kettle whistling on the stove top. Frankly, I was astounded by what he could hear. His hearing was so much more sensitive than the rest of ours. The fact that he had learned to hear the important part...speech...and begin to use it correctly was a huge accomplishment. Imagine yourself for a minute not being able to filter out background noise, but rather getting input from all of it. When he was young, he could always be found where it was quietest. If other children were in the basement playing, he would go outside. If the others came outside, he would go into the basement. We just thought it was "Andrew." In reality, it was him trying to learn how to learn how to filter and figure out all the information that his brain was receiving. The poor little guy was probably always on informational overload! To this day, he still seeks out quiet. However, he has learned to put his skills to good use. He is able to play any song off of the radio that he hears and he is hoping to seek out some type of career in music (the dream of every 15 year old boy, right???).
After all this, my words of advice would be this...relax and take a deep breath. If all of the other areas of cognitive development and physical development are on track, and the only area where your son appears to be behind is in the verbal department, then he is probably fine. (However, only someone who has been watching the development of your son would know whether he is developing correctly: i.e. gross motor skills, proper weight and height, no dark circles under his eyes, his eyes are bright and shiny, he plays will with other children, he is well behaved and listens to you well, etc.) If all of these other areas check out, then he is probably just taking his own sweet time. And the fact that you said he is starting to talk more means he is probably just starting to find his own way.
I would recommend spending a lot of time reading to him from books above his level so that he can hear well formed sentence structure and grow in his understanding. Books on tape work really well for this. My son loved looking at picture books as the words were being read to him. (By the way, as an aside, when Andrew did beging speaking, it was in complete sentences for the most part and he never had any type of speak impediments.)
Also, make him use words. Many times, we know what they want, and we are in such a rush that we fill his needs before he has been able to make his requests. Use "parroting" as a way for him to learn to form his words/sentences. Example: "Billy, do you want a glass of milk?" Don't just accept the answer yes or no, make him say a complete sentence, by copying your words if he must:
Mom: Yes! Billy: Yes!
Mom: I Billy: I
Mom: want Billy: want
Mom: a Billy: a
Mom: glass Billy: glass
Mom: of Billy: of
Mom: milk Billy: milk.
Your son needs to work for what he gets. We all gravitate to the least amount of work and I am sure your son is no different! Its part of the "human condition!" Language development and reading development come at different times for different kids. There are all shades of normal.
By the way, my son is probably somewhere on the Asperper's chart. But with training and behavior modification many of these deficiencies can be corrected.
I hope this is helpful. I would be very happy to talk to you more in depth if you think it would be worth your while. Please pm me if you have any more questions.
Peace!
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You can take the girl out of Wisconsin, but you can't take the Wisconsin out of the girl!
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melanie
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| Posted: Jan 16 2008 at 10:16am | IP Logged
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Just our experience...
My son turned 3 in October. At his birthday he sounded around where your son is now, especially what you said about starting to put some words together but not comfortably. Now, not quite for months later, he has made huge jumps. I'm still amazed at how much progress he has made. He is comfortably speaking in sentences and his vocabulary is much larger. He is still not as verbal as his sister was at this age, but he has made so much progress that I'm not really worried about it anymore. This isn't saying your son shouldn't be evaluated, just our experience. Our pediatrician was always kind of "borderline concerned" with him...he seemed delayed in speech to him too, but not horribly so, especially for a boy, and was making progress enough to make him feel like we could wait and see. He also never had any signs of an autism type of disorder, so that was a factor as well.
Now my nephew who came to live with us last year when he was 6yo....at 3, he was barely speaking at all, certainly not in sentences, and I was very sure he was somewhere on the autism spectrum. His mother had a lot of, um, issues...hence why he lives with us now...and he was never evaluated or anything. We had him evaluated when he came to live here and he was diagnosed with severe ADHD. I still think he is on the autism spectrum,,,a lot of the symptoms overlap...but the doctor didn't see what we saw when he was a toddler and preschooler.
Anyway, don't know if anything here helps. I guess I would say that if he is making progress and there aren't other symptoms of concern, a wait and see approach can be just fine. But if there are other areas you are worried about, or your gut just tells you to look further, you should certainly follow your instincts.
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Melanie
homeschooling Maria (13yo), Kain (10yo), Jack (5yo), Tess (2yo), and our newest blessing, Henry Robert, born 4/23!
slightlycrunchycatholic.blogspot.com
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insegnante
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| Posted: Jan 16 2008 at 4:22pm | IP Logged
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Thanks for the stories. That's the thing, my "gut" doesn't favor intervention beyond reading more stories, being more conscientious about modeling language to him in a way he can imitate, etc. It's encouraging to read that similar delays to my son's might indeed be individual variations in children who will eventually use language normally without intensive intervention. Not that I am using anecdotes to assume he will be the same. I had heard of kids who basically said nothing and then began speaking perfectly correctly at 4 or 5, but his language has clearly begun developing more gradually than that.
He does have a cousin on his father's side to whom we're not close, but who is 4 years old, and is apparently considered autistic. Last time we saw him he was 3 1/2 and, similar to my son now, seemed more like a 2 1/2 or 2 3/4-year-old to me. I wonder if there are multiple components to autism and my son has some kind of genetic trait that makes language more difficult to acquire, without other defining characteristics of autism being present? My husband's family is full of computer- and engineering-type brains; my husband is a tech guy with strong visuospatial skills himself. This son seems like he may have understood numbers being for quantifying items, and been able to put puzzles together, earlier than his more verbal older brother. He's really good at recognizing that the shape of one thing makes it resemble another thing.
Maybe there are subtle hearing problems that don't affect everything I would expect, but his amount of reasonably pronounced vocabulary words and his reaction to music also make it seem unlikely that there is serious hearing impairment. For a while we were saying that he was singing (approximating the words of course) before he was really talking. I think that's just another illustration of how developing an ability later than another child doesn't indicate lesser potential in that area than the child who developed earlier -- his brother was singing in tune significantly earlier, but he's turned out to be at least as musical once that ability "switched on." He's got a good ear and loves to hum and sing along (even trying to sing songs he has only heard tiny snippets of as I turned the radio dial, and not always doing a bad job) and often breaks into songs that seem to be stuck in his head, and will sit listening intently to and hum or sing along with things like classicsforkids.com and our CD of Handel's Messiah. (Once he even broke into some of the latter quite loudly at a Chinese restaurant when he heard a title mentioned...)
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Theresa
mommy to three boys, 3/02, 8/04, and 9/10, and a girl, 8/08
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insegnante
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| Posted: Jan 16 2008 at 5:27pm | IP Logged
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I'm reading about Specific Language Impairment to see if it fits -- I read elsewhere that it's more common among relatives of people with autism.
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Theresa
mommy to three boys, 3/02, 8/04, and 9/10, and a girl, 8/08
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At_His_Feet
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| Posted: Jan 16 2008 at 5:44pm | IP Logged
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Our 3 1/2 year old son has severly delayed speech. The only words he has, that sound like words are Mum and Dad. All the rest are intonation.
We see a speech pathologist for 1/2 hr every fortnight. This has really helped me to keep on track with what we need to do to help him. I'm afriad we had slipped into a pattern of knowing what he wanted and just getting it for him, rather than asking him to try and say something rather than grunting or screaming.
Our middle son has mild aspergers so at times I stress that he is on the spectrum, but the language delay is about the only things that points to that. Mind you every time I see a health professional they ask either straight out, or in a round about way if he is autistic. This can get upsetting. Would you believe that when he was 2 I had a GP look me in the eye and say srraight out "Is he autistic?"   If I had known nothing about ASD I would have gone into a tail spin.
I try not to get to worried, but it is difficult. I feel like we have missed out on a lot. You know all the cute things little one say.
Many homeschoolers might not agree with this one, but we have decided to send him to preschool this year. I'm hoping that the exposure to other children who talk might encourage him to try a little harder. If it is a behavioural thing, as we have been led to believe, then you never know. The preschool can access extra help for him too. He's also waiting for a place at early intervention, which is a small group setting 3 -6 hrs a week. We have decided to get all the help we can.
This has been our experience.
It's nice to hear from others in the same boat.
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Tricia
Mum to 3 boys 17, 15, and 10.
Do whatever He tells you
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insegnante
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| Posted: Jan 17 2008 at 10:39pm | IP Logged
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At_His_Feet wrote:
Our middle son has mild aspergers so at times I stress that he is on the spectrum, but the language delay is about the only things that points to that. Mind you every time I see a health professional they ask either straight out, or in a round about way if he is autistic. This can get upsetting. Would you believe that when he was 2 I had a GP look me in the eye and say srraight out "Is he autistic?" If I had known nothing about ASD I would have gone into a tail spin. |
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I can imagine. I didn't appreciate the way our pediatrician dealt with the autism possibility and evaluated him -- after we discussed his language delay at length -- as having a "social delay" because he was quiet and uncomfortable, even though we described his usual social behavior as quite different. His "social delay" and admitted language delay together had her saying maybe it was "high-functioning autism," which I thought was said much too offhandedly with what she had to go on. I'm one of those mothers who clearly does her own research on medical matters related to our kids, so I could hardly have lacked awareness that autism is a concern with language delay, and of course I'd considered it. As for the "social" behavior in the doctor's office, yes, he was a just-turned-three-year-old who didn't have much verbal communication ability and had had multiple blood draws for iron deficiency within the past year. He might not have been feeling all that happy or cooperative in a doctor's office, especially when the doctor seemed so tense and challenging asking him questions he couldn't possibly answer with his ability at the time that a child his age "should have" been able to. I was so relieved when at his sick visit a few months later he was smiling and laughing, following instructions, and being a bit more verbal.
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Many homeschoolers might not agree with this one, but we have decided to send him to preschool this year. I'm hoping that the exposure to other children who talk might encourage him to try a little harder. If it is a behavioural thing, as we have been led to believe, then you never know. The preschool can access extra help for him too. He's also waiting for a place at early intervention, which is a small group setting 3 -6 hrs a week. We have decided to get all the help we can.
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You know your child, so I don't "disagree" with it at all! I hope it'll help.
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Theresa
mommy to three boys, 3/02, 8/04, and 9/10, and a girl, 8/08
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4Real Forums : Special Blessings
Topic: slow language development in 3yo
