Child with Delayed Speech

You mention that he has a speech therapist. Is this through the school? If so, you may want to consider seeing if your insurance will cover the cost of having your son receive additional therapy through a private speech therapist. My experience has been that a school speech therapist only does so much and it's usually not enough. What worked best for my son was having the school ST and private ST collaborate so that they were generally working on similar goals at the same time.

Doing the ST homework that they give you is crucial. So was making sure that our son was in a structured preschool setting and had lots of exposure to typical peers. Making sure that he has the opportunity to talk instead of having people talk for him is crucial. Holding back on giving you want he wants until he says some semblance of "More milk please," (or some similar 3-word sentence) would also help. And giving it some time is also important. He's languaged delayed but he's still only 3-years old and quite young still. Our son was/is language delayed also and we did what we could as soon as we found out, just like you. We started noticing a large gain in language when he was in kindergarten and it's just been gaining momentum ever since. I guess that was the perfect right time for him to really start talking. I'm sure, as long as you are being proactive, you'll see similar results very soon.

Wishing you and your son all the best this holiday season.

My grandson has apraxia of speech and as time has gone along we've discovered he has other developmental issues that did not show up until he was older than 3. I suggest you have him evaluated. You can do this thru a developmental pediatrician who will refer him to other specialists while managing the evaluation or you can do this thru the school district which is mandated by Federal law to provide evaluation for any learning difficulty which may interefere with learning. I suggest tht if you can afford it that you do both.

My grandson, who is now 7, was in Head Start because of his speech delay. He did not thrive there and the school district sent him to a therapeutic preschool. The school district does the best that they can with limited resources. When my grandson began getting insurance coverage he had more intensified speech therapy paid for by insurance. He's now receiving neurological occupational therapy. He's 7 and in a special ed class even tho he's chronologically in 2nd grade.

The special ed class deals more with speech and behavior issues than actual subject matter. And they're struggling to provide enough of both. I feel badly because if his mother had been able to get more help for him earlier he might be in a regular classroom by now. I urge you to get a through evaluation and follow thru with recommended therapy.

There are lots of questions and hundreds of answers relating to your question. Did you try looking at previous posts?

My son had developmental apraxia of speech which has pretty much resolved at this point. His speech therapist used the Kaufman Speech Praxis method with him and it seemed to work very well. It involves teaching sounds in a specified sequence and encouraging approximations of correct speech as the child becomes more able. My son went from making very few sounds to pretty much normal speech relatively quickly...for him it was as if something "clicked" and he began to progress quickly. I know this isn't always typical, but that is how it worked for us. We also encouraged signing so that he had a method of communication until the speech developed.

Best of luck to you!
J.

Yes, my middle son had Speech Apraxia. He was diagnosed at 2 1/2 years old. He qualified through the state (CA pays for speech and OT regardless of income for children under three) two hours of speech and two hours of OT a week. I also sent him to a private co-op preschool when he was two.

At three, he was moved to the school district. I fought and convinced the school district to pay for the same services he had for another four months. At the beginning of the new school year, he was placed with the district's speech and OT teachers. I also moved him to a private school that had an excellent preschool and I drove to an university where I paid for additional Speech and OT services.

I attended a Kaufman workshop and purchased their materials to use at home. We read to our son every night.

At seven, he still qualifies for Speech therapy and probably for OT. But he is very bright and works above grade level in school, both in reading and in math. We have him in a private school and because of that, the school district fights to discontinue services. I was told around five that he does not have Apraxia and that now he just has to clear up some sounds.

Apraxia is a very difficult speech issue to clear up. Some children never do. It would be my advice to accept, fight, look for all and any therapy out there. Occupational therapy is an important conponent of the help your son needs. Apraxia is considered a motor planning problem. He will need work with a specialist who can help him with his gross and fine motor control.

Good luck! It is a hard road to travel. Stay strong and stay positive. He needs you to help him communicate with the world right now.

A good friend of mine works for Fraser (http://www.fraser.org/) in Minnesota. Fraser School offers inclusive child care, Ready 4K and a play-based preschool curriculum. They work with kids with all types of delays in a school like setting. Its fabulous! Give them a call or drop them an email and see if they can recommend a program like theirs in your area.

does he have tubes? does he need tubes? is he hard of hearing? mine took speech but you should have been taught how to reinforce at home and should be doing it. if not tell them you want to sit through a speech session. I think there is more going on than you realize. it might help him alot to put him in the special school and after raising one child who had speech problems and on kid number 2 my first is 21 I would definately consider in my case I would probably do the special preschool.

My daughter just turned three in November and has had severe speech/language delays since birth basically. She was always so quiet. Babies are supposed to babble and have their own little language and she never did. I always suspected there was a delay there at the very minimum, but of course, I had my parents and my in-laws telling me otherwise. At the age of 15 months, I had her evaluated and sure enough, she came in at the equivalent of 7 months of age for speech. In ND we have an early intervention program where we had a SLP come in and spend time with her once a week for an hour, give us "homework", etc. At the age of 24 months, and with the fear of her having speech apraxia (also suggested to us by our SLP), we decided to also put her in an out-patient speech therapy program twice a week for thirty minutes. This seemed to help, but only slightly. We continued both of these interventions for a year, and saw limited improvement. Once she turned three we had the opportunity to put her into an early childhood preschool center, where they also have a SLP that works with her (on top of out-patient therapy) for an hour each week. She attends school twice a week for four hours each day. She is in a class with 3, 4, and 5 year olds and it is fairly structured, and let me tell you.. we have seen such a HUGE difference in the three weeks she's been in. She just started this week to spontaneously (not repeating what you say) say three word sentences. Yesterday I felt like for the first time ever her and I actually carried on a conversation.. it went something like this... "Hailey, let's go potty"... "Yes, potty"..."Hailey, be careful, the potty is yucky"... "Potty yucky...Hailey yucky too"... "Hailey isn't yucky!!"...."No, potty yucky". I know for most three year olds this doesn't sound like much, but with my daughter, this was HUGE! Just the fact that she added a "too" onto the end of her two words PLUS she answered a question (basically) instead of just repeating me! Three weeks ago, she was barely speaking two word sentences spontaneously, now she's doing three words (clearly), answering questions, and saying "too". I think all of the "extra" help she has been receiving is helping, however, I think being around other children, some her age, some older, is a HUGE benefit. I'm a SAHM with an 11 month old son, so the only other interaction she gets with other children (before preschool) was him, the occasional play date, and the nursery at church on Sundays. This is just what has helped us, I can't speak for your child, but I can definitely relate to you and how it feels to have a child with severe speech delays. She is still delayed but at least I feel like finally we are making some progress. She is now almost 37 months and is coming in around 28 (and that's a rough estimate).

My daughter is 3 and has severe speech delays. We have her in a speech impact program through the early childhood system. It is 3 hours/2mornings a week ~ so 6 hours a week. We have seen amazing progress and are very pleased. Also, just my two cents here...but don't feel you have to accept a diagnosis of suspect apraxia. It is a new 'hot diagnosis' that speech therapists are trying to slap onto everyone. Our birth to 3 SLP tried saying our daughter had apraxia. Then after thorough testing by her new SLP she said she is not apraxic ~ just delayed. All too often I have seen children (and adults) get slapped with a label or diagnosis that forces other professionals to expect less of them and want to treat them with toxic meds rather than actually work with them. You know your child and their strengths & weaknesses, so trust your gut and be your own advocate.