My grandson has apraxia of speech. His pediatrician also said not to worry that he was just slow getting started. When he was 2 1/2 his pediatrician gave his mother phone numbers so that she could have him evaluated. She decided to have him evaluated thru the school district since his insurance didn't cover specialist in this field. He's received ST, OT, thru the school district ever since. When his Dad changed to Kaiser Permanente Insurance, he had a few sessions with a specialist which did not seem to be related to his lack of speech or emotional control. He did well during the short time in their structured environment. They focused on gaining his co-operation in doing activities.
He's now 7 and entering the 2nd grade in a special education class. This past year he was mainstreamed in P.E. and art and continued in the therapies. Unfortunately,. he only gets ST 2 hours/week and he's not benefited as much as we'd hoped because of his anger issues.
He's still not able to consistently talk so that we can understand him. I wonder if he'd be further along if he'd received speech therapy earlier and more often, especially when I hear of successful results for other children.
He also has behavior difficulties and I think that he's somewhere on the autism spectrum disorder line. His mother has asked about that and the Early Intervention people have said it's possible. They have now referred him to a pediatric developmental specialist. Until this. referral I didn't know there was such a specialist. His regular pediatrician had to see him to do the referral and he diagnosed him with ADHD and said that my grandson has several issues which need treatment.
I think he should have seen a pediatric developmental specialist from the beginning. I'm very glad to read about your getting your child early intervention along with continued and more often speech therapy.
You do not mention if there are behavioral issues as well. Around 2, I noticed that my grandson ran into walls and objects, seemingly on purpose and needed firm touch often, and was unable to sit quietly for any length of time at all. We stopped eating out, even for special occasions because he was all over the place and could not be controlled in the new and chaotic environment.
He has always ran full speed, head on, to greet me with a hug even tho I've worked with him trying to get him to stop. He doesn't recognize social cues in spite of focusing on teaching them to him. He is beginning to respond to directions given at the moment that action is needed.
He seems to be emotionally on one end or the other much of the time. He's bursting with enthusiastic energy or very angry. He probably does spend about half of his time in the middle but the two extremes are so obvious. He's become much more calm at home and with me but he's become more aggressive at school.
I've worked a lot with children who had emotional issues and he's the first one I remember seeing actually clench his fists at his side and contort his face in an effort to not hit. He still has difficulty in being able to stop himself from hitting and kicking unless he leaves the situation. His classroom has a time out chair but what he needs is vigorous action. His emotions are so intense!
He has noticeable difficulty changing transitioning from one activity to another. For example, he has difficulty leaving his toys and going to the dinner table even tho they have a dinner routine and he's warned ahead of time. He is now able to stay at the table for 10-15 minutes but it's taken a lot of effort to teach him how to do that.
Fortunately my grandson is warm and loveable much of the time until something happens and he goes on a terror. I'm praying that the pediatric developmental specialist will be able to figure out what is going on and we can find ways to help him.
Early on, one of his therapists recommended learning sign language. I've worked on learning it but discovered that no one has taught him sign language. Just today I found flash cards with pictures and I'm going to work with him so that both of us can learn it. I suspect that at least some of his anger is related to his inability to communicate with words.
I don't know how much of his behavior is related to the apraxia of speech and how much to other diagnosis not yet made. I've done a lot of reading and often feel confused. This is a new field and a lot of what I read seems to be supposition not yet proven. There are several interrelated conditions.
And my big frustration is it is expensive to have private treatment and the school district has limited funding even tho a federal law mandates diagnosis and treatment. I've found information on the Internet and in a few books. Having speech apraxia, developmental and educational issues is overwhelming.
You are doing a great job getting the help your child needs. Since you mentioned only speech difficulties I'm not sure that what I've written will be helpful for you. If apraxia of speech is your child's only problem,I would be encouraged after reading Laurie D and Chantal A's answers. You have been able to get therapy from both school district and private sources. I think your child has a very good chance of learning to talk by the time he's in school.