Speech delay and speech and language therapy

[Lalalalaaaaaa85]

Hi lala
Just wanted offer my vast 10 years experience with my son.

He was baby no 3 so his older sister 20months older and his big sister around 5 years older and was school age when he was born..

I had a feeling by 18months his speech wasn't right.
Health visitor fobbed me off with hes a boy they typically lazy and he has so older sibling at home that speak for him.
At age 2 I put him in local preschool attached to eldest primary 2 afternoon a week they were very concerned about his speech.
Locally south west they wouldn't refer to until age 3 think he was nearly 3.5 before he was seen by speech and language therapist at local health clinic who were concerned.
I tried going to gp as his temper tantrum/ anxiety and refused go toiliet outside house was hard.
We moved preschool s and again they were very concerned.
Finally they agreed added him at early years development nursery i assumed he would score for autism as he was rigid around routine and doing specific things.
He was diagnosed with verbal dyspraxia and speech delay disorder so 2 separate speech and language disorders..
He started reception 4 .5 years only saying 10 words and in pull ups.
Took most reception year persuade council sen give him ehcp which then meant he had one to one ta year 1 and 2 plus weekly speech and language therapy big improvement on speech and language communities which was block 6 sessions then months of nothing.

All I can say is keep pushing.
Knew something was wrong.
Biggest regret was not paying for private speech and language diagnosis.
Took until he was nearly 5 have definitive private assessment which helped me gain ehcp the NHS now run by sirona health locally were the worst and still are.

I still remember how depressed and lonely hv and schools made me feel.
How i felt odd , sad even jealous taking him to toddler groups knowing something was amiss and no one listening.

Thank you Fireflies. It’s so stressful isn’t it when you feel no one is listening. How is he doing now?

 

[Lalalalaaaaaa85]

Hi there, I am a speech and language therapist and to be honest at your sons age most of the work needs to be done through parents- ie SLT giving parents advice on strategies to be implemented in the home/nursery environment. At 2.5 it is very difficult to engage a child in any sort of 1:1 therapy as they don’t usually have the required attention and listening skills. Children absolutely do develop at different times and in different ways, milestones can be really useful measuring tools but also great sources of stress for parents so looking at the overall picture of how a child is developing is often most useful. For that reason an initial SLT assessment of a 2.5 year old is likely to be very play based, looking at all of their skills and interaction and involving parents a lot to gain a picture of what the child is like in various environments. There are loads of lovely resources online about how to help create a language rich environment at home which you could try in the interim while you wait for your appointment, this is a good place to start.

The Communication Trust

www.thecommunicationtrust.org.uk

Services are different depending on where you live, but they are generally really really stretched which is so rough for families and therapists alike. Good luck with it all!

Thank you, I’ll check out the link I’ll have a look and start trying some of their suggestions.

My little girl is 3 and has a relatively mild speech delay. We gave up with the Health Visitors when Preschool arranged an assessment for her with their SLT. We ended up paying privately for sessions, she's just done a block of 6 and the difference has been phenomenal. I wouldn't want to wait a year on the NHS and her be so close to starting school with such a problem.

I think maybe I’ll speak with work and see if their private health scheme would allow me to go privately. Did you just seek out a private speech and language therapist or go via something like Bupa?

 

[Lalalalaaaaaa85]

Of course. As well as the speech delay, he just didn’t seem to have any understanding of the world around him. This was the biggest thing really. He’s always had very set ways of doing things and routines as well. Very poor diet too and he can be funny with certain clothing and shoes etc. It was just obvious he was different to his peers. I will mention though that the first thing they did was check his hearing before anyone else got involved as it could be something to do with that rather than a speech issue.
I first voiced my concerns though at around 22 months and from then on he had a lot of support from professionals (we feel very lucky as I know this isn’t always the case) Getting the paediatrician involved was the best thing though as that’s what started the talk of autism. It was a long process though, waiting lists are long and he wasn’t officially diagnosed until he was 5. Thankfully, even without the diagnosis he was able to access a lot of support (speech therapy, paediatrician, learning disability nurse etc) The only thing the diagnosis really helped with is when I wanted him to attend a special needs primary school. Apart from that, the diagnosis made no difference

Thank you for replying

Ok we don’t have the same issues, our concerns with our son are he’s not very sociable, he prefers to play alone than with his peers. Ironically he’s everyone’s favourite at nursery so he has a little gang of kids that pretty much follow him around as he just tries to play on his own . Also he didn’t point until recently which is apparently a sign and he didn’t respond to his name till he was about 18 months. He doesn’t play pretend or babble during play either, just likes to roll cars back and forth.

We had his hearing checked last year luckily when things opened up again during the summer. They didn’t find anything wrong there.

 

[lexle]

Thank you everyone who has responded, it’s helped me feel a little less alone. It’s always a bit disheartening to see other kids at my sons nursery chatting away and my son is still just making grunts or eeeee sounds.

Disappointing to hear SALT isn’t amazing, I think my boyfriend and I had it in our minds that would sort everything out and we’d see vast improvements quickly. Hopefully he starts to pick things up himself then as he gets older.



Could I ask what other signs your son had? If you would rather not share that’s fine. Just my son also has a couple of other things that have led us to wonder if he is possibly autistic, not just the speech. What was the process for getting the diagnosis and what has having a diagnosis meant for your son? As in does it help in getting better support?

Of course. As well as the speech delay, he just didn’t seem to have any understanding of the world around him. This was the biggest thing really. He’s always had very set ways of doing things and routines as well. Very poor diet too and he can be funny with certain clothing and shoes etc. It was just obvious he was different to his peers. I will mention though that the first thing they did was check his hearing before anyone else got involved as it could be something to do with that rather than a speech issue.
I first voiced my concerns though at around 22 months and from then on he had a lot of support from professionals (we feel very lucky as I know this isn’t always the case) Getting the paediatrician involved was the best thing though as that’s what started the talk of autism. It was a long process though, waiting lists are long and he wasn’t officially diagnosed until he was 5. Thankfully, even without the diagnosis he was able to access a lot of support (speech therapy, paediatrician, learning disability nurse etc) The only thing the diagnosis really helped with is when I wanted him to attend a special needs primary school. Apart from that, the diagnosis made no difference

 

[Lalalalaaaaaa85]

Hiya, just wondering how your little boy is doing now? My son is 26 months and only has a few words also, he will point to things in books if you ask him where is the ... ? But he won’t use his words to tell us his needs he just takes our hands to what we wants. He knows animal sounds to a lot of animals he waves bye bye and will point but he was very late to do this also. It’s so heartbreaking when I see other children his age chatting away and almost chatting in sentences. He would say a lot of things with his mouth closed if that makes sense? He seems to understand a lot of what we say to him and commands etc so I feel like the understanding is there. I have contacted my health visitor and she referred him for speech therapy at his 2 year review and we are waiting on an appointment from ENT to get his ears checked although I don’t think there is an issue there and he seems to hear other things perfectly well. I just feel so helpless and everyday I wake with the first start worry and anxiety about him it’s so hard.

Thanks for checking in . He’s three at the weekend and still no words apart from Mumma really. He’s had a couple of observations by speech and language which hasn’t really been much help and they said they’ll see him again in February and if he’s still not making progress he’ll be referred to a specialist for assessment.

I’m thinking more and more that he is on the spectrum although hopefully not to the extent that his life is seriously impacted. He has his little quirks that make us feel he must be but he has made great improvements in his social skills and is able to play with his peers now which he never used to do.

I wish he could tell me what’s going on inside that beautiful head of his. I hope one day he can.

I know what you mean about feeling helpless it’s horrible isn’t it. I made myself cry the other day thinking how if he was in care or a horrible family he’d be so easily abused as he can’t tell people somethings wrong. I was literally walking down the road crying my eyes out

 

[gemma12]

My son is 2.5 and not talking yet, I had been bugging the health visitor since he was about 16 months old and finally got his referral for speech and language the day after he turned 2. Unfortunately we then had to wait about 20 weeks to be sent an appointment which is booked now for next month.

Just wanted to see if anyone else had been through this with their child? What sort of things can we expect from speech and language? People who have gone through it how quickly (or not) did you see improvements? Has your child now caught up or not?

Also every time I Google about my son all I get back is autism. Now if that is the case then that’s fine we will do whatever we can to help him but I wondered if there is any chance it’s not something as serious as that? Obviously we would all rather he didn’t have a lifelong disability but are we kidding ourselves? Should I be starting to bang down more doors to get more help?

Guess just looking for anyone with relevant/similar experiences as I like to gather as much info as I can so I can help my son as best I can.

Hiya, just wondering how your little boy is doing now? My son is 26 months and only has a few words also, he will point to things in books if you ask him where is the ... ? But he won’t use his words to tell us his needs he just takes our hands to what we wants. He knows animal sounds to a lot of animals he waves bye bye and will point but he was very late to do this also. It’s so heartbreaking when I see other children his age chatting away and almost chatting in sentences. He would say a lot of things with his mouth closed if that makes sense? He seems to understand a lot of what we say to him and commands etc so I feel like the understanding is there. I have contacted my health visitor and she referred him for speech therapy at his 2 year review and we are waiting on an appointment from ENT to get his ears checked although I don’t think there is an issue there and he seems to hear other things perfectly well. I just feel so helpless and everyday I wake with the first start worry and anxiety about him it’s so hard.