My 4 Year Old Son

If your son -- at age 4 -- has trouble understanding how to answer questions and communicates mostly by pointing or pulling, then he's developmentally delayed for his age. It's not because you didn't put him in daycare. It's probably something going on in his brain that therapy might help. Please take him to the pediatrician and ask to have him evaluated.

What do the preschool teachers say?

Edited to add: Nannette - you can call your local school district and ask that he be evaluated. If your preschool is part of the public school district, they might be able to get the evaluation started for you, but if it's a private school, all you have to do is call the public school and ask how to get some testing done to see what therapy he needs. It's great that the school he's at now suggested therapy - just don't forget to contact the public school to do a full evaluation. You may find that the therapy he's in now is all he needs, but the evaluation might find he needs speech, or sensory, or play therapy, or tons others. It sounds like you want the best for your son and that you're working very hard to help him become a confident learner. Hugs to you!

Have you had him evaluated for speech therapy? This is something we as a family might have to consider for our son who just turned 4. How about his hearing. If this is a new situation i.e. daycare he is probably learning to adjust. If it continues I would make sure he is checked out.

No I don't think that's it. I would get him evaluated as well. Does he do this at home or just in school? My daughter is 4 and has never been to daycare and she talks her head off as well as follows directions ( when she feels like it!) I would talk to your pediatrician about it. Good luck mama!

what does the dr & the school think....that's your starting point.

Sometimes with only (or 1st) children, the parents simply don't have the life experiences to teach/prepare their children. That doesn't make you a bad parent! It just means that you have to learn what to do! Our older son likes to tell everybody that his brother is so "good"....because we made all of our mistakes with him. He's 24...what can I say....other than he has a mouth & a wicked sense of humor!

I just wanted to chime in and agree with what Everly said. Definitely have him evaluated by your public school system. They will look at all functions - speech, hearing and behavior. My son is also 4 and currently an only child. He had a lot of "delays" when he started preschool at 3 and I also originally thought it was just that he didn't have as much sibling socialization. However, after getting him evaluated, we realized he had a lot of sensory processing issues. My only other recommendation is to keep being an advocate for your son. Even if you have him evaluated by the school, they are going to point out "symptoms" or delays, they are not in the market to diagnose or look holistically at your child. I would look into private evaluations or therapy. Not to scare you, but I pushed for a private evaluation when my son was about 3.5 and learned he has mild aspergers. I am not suggesting your son is on the autism spectrum but I can say that some of the things you mention could be a sign. The other thing that came out of our eval was that he has delays in receptive language. This was something the school's speech eval didn't pick up on. After further testing we realize this is why he doesn't always answer questions that don't have a yes or no answer. He speaks very well, has all the words but sometimes just can't "find" the words to answer more open ended questions. Good luck.