My sons doc thinks he is probably speech delayed. I went ahead and called our Early Childhood Intervention program here and set up a meeting for next Friday. After talking to the lady and answering her million and a half questions (and also tons of research on Dr. Google) I really thinbk he DOES have a problem.
He is 20 months old and only has 10 words, of these he only uses 3 correctly (but not consistantly). He does not follow simple directions with out someone physically pointing/showing/leading him. He gets VERY upset when he needs/wants something but we have no idea what it is. I used to think he was just being a pain when he doesnt listen to "no" half the time, but now that I am thinking about it, he ONLY responds when we use the firm tone. So he is responding to our tone, not the actual word. For example: He runs into to road EVERY TIME we go outside. Ive tried everything I can think of to keep him out of the road. saying no/stop/dont and showing him (leading him away) is not working. If i ask him "sit down" he just looks at me. I have to show him/help him to sit down, EVERY TIME.
Anyways, the whole point of this is to see if anyone here has any insight/advice/similar experiences. I just feel like I missed something SOOO big until it was pointed out to me. I like to think I am a pretty observant mom, but now I just feel so guilty

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Hey, don't stress over missing things. As a child care provider you get so used to seeing how VERY different every child can really be from one another that we often don't see the little signs that are right in front of us.

I also think that at 20 months, he is fairly young and will probably not have any issue catching up with the right help.

Good for you for getting him help immediately and as I said, don't stress about feeling like you missed something.....mom guilt will eat you up so let it go and look to the future.

Soon you will be wishing he would stop talking for a few minutes so you can get some peac/quiete....LOL!!

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My son's issues were a little different, but I'll tell it to give you perspective:

At birth, I started BF, and he seemed to do ok, but as soon as I introduced a bottle, he could no longer latch on to the breast. Not a huge red flag, really.

At 2, he had some language, but his articulation was not good. When I asked the doctor (each time we went in for whatever-usually the ears), he said "well, he has an older brother who talks for him." Much as I said 'no, that's not the case", the doctor insisted.

At 2 1/2, I noticed that he was rather "floppy" compared to other kids, and family members expressed concern about his speech, so we had him assessed through BIRTH-to-3. We filled out a huge questionare, and they thought he had speech issues and thought maybe gross motor issues, although I disagreed.

He started getting some speech therapy. I took him to an audiologist, and there were some hearing problems (due to ear infections), but then later, they said his hearing was fine upon re-testing.

At 4, I got him into a 4 year old kindergarten, and they asked if it was ok to do more evaluations. Sure enough, he had not only speech issues, but fine AND gross motor delays. They started giving him speech, OT, and PT.

He continued all 3, and in 2nd grade, also added Title 1 (kids with speech issues often struggle with reading). The speech therapist in kindergarten said that his LANGUAGE was at a 3rd grade level, although his articulation was WAY behind. So, I asked about an IQ test (kids with articulation issues can be mislabeled easily..they sound "dumb").

His IQ came back at and estimated 135-140, with extremely high results in the Pattern analysis/quantitative reasoning areas. So now, he also qualified for Gifted and Talented programming!

We ended up moving in 5th grade, and his new school was TERRIBLE at understanding his needs. He struggled for most of the rest of school, barely graduating.

After graduating, he joined the army. He is now 20 years old, and is one of only 500 young men (in an army of 500,000) to become a sniper. He worked his butt off to get in. The physical part alone was a huge challenge. He is no longer "floppy" because he has worked his muscles (and has no body fat whatsoever). Wierd to see my floppy little boy with that runner's body! The thing that got him into Sniper school.....his math abilities.

So, the moral of my story is: It's not unusual to miss things. I have other friends with children with mild special needs, and they all missed it too...until others questioned it. What you need to do now is be his advocate. Educate yourself. You need to know what his rights are, what services are available, and who to kick in the tushie when he needs something! and, find his strengths! He will need those to build his confidence and to find what he excels at.

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You have to go with your gut hon. If YOU feel there is something not right then it's not going to hurt to get things evaluated by a professional.

My first son hardly talked before 2 but when he did, it was crystal clear. I think he was just waiting to get it perfect before he let it out. Wasn't it Einstein that didn't speak until nearly 4?

He is quite Bril - in the IQ range that Heidi's child is and is now an adult that speaks so wonderfully and technically that I feel like a moron next to him. That said, as far as common sense, he struggles. He is your A-typical Engineer type. You can't have it all!

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tough situation, but I agree with others in that I think its one most children will come out of just fine.

I had an uncle that didn't speak until he was 5. I guess he just didn't feel like it-- he's definitely been a great, successful uncle.

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My friend's son had speech delays too. She was able to get speech therapy for him and he's almost completely caught up now almost a year later. he was grunting and pointing and wouldn't say anywords at all. Nothing.

Her doctor said the same thing, that his older brother was talking for him. I'm not sure if it was the case or not, but the individual attention from the speech therapist really helped.

So don't feel guilty. As parents many times we don't really want to see that our children are different. So even if we do see small signs, we tend to overlook them or tell ourselves it's normal. I think that is any parent. But now that you see a problem, you can fix it. So go from there. Don't feel guilty. Now if you knew there was a problem and did nothing that's another story, but you didn't see it and didn't know.

Take it one day at a time and work together to get him the assistance he needs. I bet your relationship will even be stronger because of it!

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my dd had issues too, at the same age as your ds. I called the speech people but because she wasn't bad enough, they wouldn't take her, so we did private. Then when she went to school, the school helped out too. She stopped in grade 3. She is now going to go to grade 7. She reads so well, and her spelling is amazing. So early interventions is key.


NOW, I had a dcb (he's older and does come twice a week) but he too had speech problems. So parents brought him to the same place I did and they said that he wasn't bad enough (he was even worse then my dd)

WELL, one day I gave everyone suckers (lollipops) all the kids were licking theres, but this kid just couldn't, he was biting it like crazy. So I told him to try, and he just couldn't do it, I looked at his mouth and sure enough, he was tongue tied (look it up on google but its fairly common) told the parents and he got it fixed. Suddenly he was talking up a storm. But the parents stopped his speech, because "they" thought he was fine. But he's 7 and his speech is still pretty bad (not like before) but he has other problems too. (which I knew since 14 months old) that are just being adressed now (because they didn't believe me that there were other issues)

so do the lollipop test, also get his ears checked too. Oh, get his eyesight checked too.

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Thank you for telling me this. It made me cry (the happy ending kinda tears). I am so glad for him!

I hope so!! Im hoping by the time his daddy comes home from deployment he is right on track for his age

How do they test eyesight in a child his age? I didnt think about this, but I will look into it this week as well

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Oh they can do it! We were just at the eye Dr. and all he has to do is look in a machine that shows a hot air balloon in the distance. It's really cool and it can tell! Really awesome!

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Great! Thanks. I will be calling first thing tomorrow

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I had a very bad case of denial for my youngest who was diagnosed with Mild Spastic Cerebral Palsy at age 5!!!

I kept thinking she was slow because she has 6 older brothers and sisters who did everything for her! It was suggested at daycare when she was 2 that there was something wrong with her... I didn't listen.

Then, when she was in kindergarten, the teacher told me that she was very smart and could read, but could not print or do colouring. She had very little fine motor skills and her gross motor skills were affected also. No wonder she kept falling down!

She has graduated high school! But, she had alot of help with OT, PT, speech therapy and scribes for tests. She used a computer with an Alpha Writer for school. She has had to wear bifocals since kindergarten because the muscles in her eyes don't track (there's a long medical name for her eye condition) very well.

So, I too feel very guilty about not knowing that my child had a handicap even when it was pointed out to me. It never occurred to me that there was something wrong with her, I thought it was me.

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