I have a four year old dck with some speech issues. Not sure if this child is delayed or if they are just having some other difficulties, but at 4.5 he is hard to understand, have a lot of downright WEIRD pronunciations, bizarre sound substitutions, and even his parents and I have a hard time understanding him--we get maybe (maybe) 75% of what he says.

I have gently suggested to dcm that he needs an evaluation for speech issues, and she looked shocked. She's even complained/mentioned his problems before, but still acted surprised that I think his speech is abnormal.

Thing is, people who have never met him before comment to me about his speech. And some of his pronunciations are getting weirder.

How can the parent not see/admit that her kid doesn't speak as well as he should at 4.5? How can parents just assume that it's all normal? It's NOT normal! I seriously do not understand how parents doesn't get this stuff.

Reply

I had a child like this and it was sad because the parents were both in serious denial. They finally got him evaluated and he is now in a special needs class.

Reply

I can honestly say that I understand how things like speech issues can be overlooked by parents. I am a licensed, Master's level special need teacher, and I evaluate speech issues during evaluations. My own 2.4 year old just started to put 2-3 word phrases together. I really didn't start to push the issue until my friend, a speech pathologist, mentioned her concerns.

I knew what he should be doing, but was a little bit blinded by my love for my own little guy. I was just so enamored with his cuteness that I sort of ignored the warning signs. He is fine now, and I am not worried. As a professional, I should have noticed sooner. As a mother, I should have noticed, but was too preoccupied by my overwhelming love.

I would revisit it with the mom once she has had a chance to think about what you presented to her. It can be difficult to think something may be not quite right, but once she has had time to process, she may be more receptive.

Reply

IMHO, It is easier for us to see because we see so many kids at that exact age.

I agree that it is frustrating to mention it over and over to parents and be ignored or blown off.

It is so nerve wracking to even bring it up, we worry and stress about it for weeks before finally mentioning it in the first place. I am not sure they realize it is really hard for us to even start that conversation

I have always believed it was due to denial and processing, that they would eventually be ready to talk about it. Sometimes that is true, sometimes not

Reply

I have had parents who were in complete denial before too and it is frustrating.

As a parent though, I can understand how difficult it is to admit that my child has an issue and how difficult it would or could be to deal with fears associated with labeling as well as not necessarily always seeing the severity of a delay since we are all blinded by parental love.

Usually what I do is just keep pushing the early childhood screening. Luckily for me, the preschool screening is a requirement for school entrance here as well as it being HIGHLY recommended to be done at or around age 3-3.5. Our family physicians will also push for the screening as well.

Most the delays or issues I had seen are caught during well-child check ups or during the preschool screening.

Reply

My SIL is like this. my 4 1/2 year old nephew has a speech delay and I've been telling her this (as well as my 2 BIL, my DH, my MIL, my FIL etc) since he was 3 when it was OBVIOUS that he had a delay (we've suspected since he was 2 1/2).

He's one of my DCK's so my DH, BIL & his wife (live nextdoor) help him as much as we can (he's my DCK) but all my SIL says is "All kids develop differently". He started pre-school this year and I pick him up everyday and the teacher stopped me to talk about his speech the FIRST WEEK of pre-school to say that he needed intervention. Tell me something I don't already know.

Since he was 2 1/2 I've even made it far enough to call and get ALL OF THE INFORMATION for her for FREE services, offered to take him to the evaluation so that she didn't have to take time off of work and offered to let the speech therapist come to MY HOUSE to do the excercises. All she had to do was call and set the appointment which I HANDED TO HER. She has never done anything about it.

Around October I think, I asked his teacher if there was anything that they could do to talk to my SIL about therapy and his teacher sighed heavily, closed her eyes briefly and then said "We've tried". Apparently we are all wrong and SIL is the only one that knows that he's perfectly fine.

Sometimes no matter what you say, all you can do is offer and do the best you can for the child while they are in your care.

Reply

Denial. No one wants to think there is anything wrong with their child. It may be harder for them to notice since the child is theirs. They may even think that it is quirky & cute. Could just be they are used to it & since they can understand the child, they assume everyone can.

Reply

or you can be like the others and let the school deal with it.

Reply

It's usually a hearing problem or the child may be tongue-tied which causes speech issues. The Pediatrician should also be picking up on these things. When was the last time the child was in for a check-up? Sometimes parents are more apt to listen to the Dr. rather than the child care provider.

You've mentioned it - it's now up to the parents to take over. There's that fine line that you don't want to cross when there's an issue with a child.

My neighbor's children all talked gobbledygook to me until they were all about 6. I couldn't understand any of them until they were older. Now they are fine and none have every had any special speech pathology.

Reply

I bring it up once...maybe twice, then I drop the subject and let them deal with it later in school.

I have had one or two kids that I knew seriously needed help, and I was pretty forceful with them. But, I felt like the parents needed someone to push the subject. I even had one lady come observe and test "all" the kids one year so this one child would get help.

Reply

I completely understand the frustration. I had an almost 3 yr old who was not talking & could not hear a thing. Talked until I was blue in the face but parents insisted he could hear, he was just shy. He started school this year and, suprise suprise, he's deaf.

On the flip side I understand how tough it can be to hear that your child is "different." I knew my son was different, but I didn't want to admit it & have him evaluated and "labeled." I knew I needed to have him evaluated but reeeeeally didn't want to. Eventually I did & when the diagnosis came I was heartbroken & angry. Heartbroken because he was now labeled for life, angry because there was no way to "fix" what was wrong-it was like a big black cloud hanging over my head after that. I even wished that I never had him evaluated.

Anyways, give it some time. Let mom think about it for awhile before bringing it up again....she may have a different response next time. In the mean time, write down your observations & specifics so that when mom is ready you have it all set to go.

Reply

There was one kid at a home daycare I used to work at he was held back a year in their preschool program and the provider and her daughter said they have tried to tell his mom that he needs to be evaluated but she wont do it. It's not nessisarily his speech (though he does talk slower, as if he was 4 instead of 6 or 7) but you can just tell in his face, it's not disformed or anything but he always looks confused or dazed- like he can't concentrate or focus, it's very apparent that he has some cognition issues and it takes him alot longer to grasp concepts than some of the younger kids.

I think part of it may be because of guilt or something because she was an older mom (he's the only kid and she is in her mid to late 40's) and I don't know much about the dad or if he was involved or not. Another thing could be that she doesn't want him to be judged if he has to go to special ed. But I think she also doesn't understand that the earlier he gets intervention the less likely he will have trouble in school when he is in high school and the more likely he will graduate (on time!) and even less likely to be in special ed in high school. The more intervention now the less intervention later. Thats why I think so many kids get frustrated and wind up droping out of school- because they didn't get the help they needed when they were younger.

I was in special ed in middle school and high school but when I got to high school other than math (my worst subject) they couldn't find anything wrong with me (at least not developmentaly lol) so they pretty much kicked me out of special ed- I think looking back the problem was just that I didn't focus enough.

Reply