Speech delay recovery – positive stories?
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Anonymous
| Op are you doing leap? And do you have a really great slp? I can suggest someone. If the receptive language is normal, do you suspect apraxia? |
Anonymous
| OP here. Would love any recommendations for an SLP, although we currently have one. DD's articulation is excellent, and apraxia or other motor planning issues has been ruled out, at least for now. We did LEAP for a semester last year, but I have three children and the commute back and forth was making it hard on the whole family. I also wasn't that happy with some aspects of the program for us, but that's another story. |
Anonymous
I hear you. We have a really good one in Falls Church - is that close to you at all? Also, are you doing PEP/the equivalent? I would think that might be really helpful. |
Anonymous
We are in MoCo. We are very lucky to have a fantastic play-based preschool that my son went to when he still was catching up from his speech delay, and she will be going there a few days a week in another month or so. Not a special needs school, but it is very nurturing. Her SLP says she needs a play-based environment that doesn't demand too much in terms of speech demands or performance as it gets her stressed out and she clams up. Looking forward to her just playing around other kids her age. Yesterday, she actually had a real back-and-forth argument with her brother, so being around other kids definitely draws her out. 
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Anonymous
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Good lord some of these posters are insuferable.
OP, I've been where you are and I do have a positive story: DS is 7. He started speech therapy at 18 months old and is still receiving services now, heading into second grade. He doesn't have any receptive delays (and yes, I'm sure. yes, he's been tested extensively. yes, I know it can be hard to tease out. yes, I'm sure it's not co-morbid with autism/dyslexia/ADHD/mutism/whatever else). Every. single. step. has been a loooong, hard slog. BUT - he keeps moving forward. At 4, strangers couldn't understand him at all, and even those closest to him had to really focus. His articulation was terrible, his word recall was bizarrely wrong, and his sentence structure was that of a toddler. But we kept working and working and working, twice a week, for years. His latest eval had him at slightly below average! I can't tell you how excited I was to hear that
He still has a long way to go - his word recall is still weird (he'll come up with long, complicated, convoluted ways to explain things because he can't think of the right word), his grammar is way below grade level, and he still can't say /r/ to save his life. BUT - he is 100% intelligible even by strangers. He can communicate all his ideas and needs and wants. And every day/week/month he's getting better and better. One of his main goals in 1st grade was appropriate use of he/she, him/her, and plurals. It took most of the year, but he got it! Now we're working on past tenses and irregular verb forms. And he's getting there! And we'll keep working and keep working and keep working. The way I've come to think about it is that DS needs to have every little bit of language rules explicitly taught to him. Things that most kids will automatically pick up through hearing others, he needs to be taught and practice through lots of repetition. So it's taking a lot longer than for other kids. But once he gets a skill, he has it. So he'll screw up irregular verbs as a 7 year old - not the end of the world. And he'll probably never be a lover of words. But I'm confident now that he'll be able to speak and communicate clearly and correctly as an adult. When he was 4, I definitely wouldn't have been able to say that sentence. Hang in there! |
Anonymous
| Op to 12:52 – thanks for posting this. So many of these posts from parents and SLPs have lifted my spirits a great deal. It may have been a bad day a few days ago, but it has actually been an extraordinary week in my LO's development. I'll be thinking of you and your child as you both continue to grow together! |
Anonymous
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OP, a lot of these kids like the last poster said are doing pretty well at 7-8, including mine who has receptive language. The 3-6 seems the hardest. My child does well overall at school and loves it. We did a small structured school after LEAP and that was very positive. LEAP is the best around but the new director has made a lot of changes. We were there during the transition and it worked for my child but I don't think her mixed age groups and other stuff that I am hearing about would have been best for us. The commute is very hard, especially if you have other commitments. LEAP was very positive for my child. Otherwise, your best option is to find a preschool, which may be hard and do lots of private therapy.
We have language bumps. Usually there is negative, very frustrating behavior for weeks before and then we notice language and behavioral improvements. We notice the biggest jumps in the summer. I'd just do as much private 1-1 therapy as you can. We love our SLP but she's no longer taking young ones and specializes. |
Anonymous
This is very similar to us/same age but we have receptive issues. He is not testing in low average to average but you can still tell something is going on. He tries hard and every day makes slow and steady improvement. You are just in the height of it but it does get better an easier, especially without receptive issues. I find the receptive far harder than the expressive. |
Anonymous
| My now 6 year old literally didn't talk until 3. It'll all be ok, op! We're rooting for you! |
Anonymous
| Bumping this very old thread to see if any 2023 parents want to contribute... |
Anonymous
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My child was just diagnosed with adhd combined type. He turns 5 this fall, and is just starting speech therapy. He had pretty typical receptive and expressive speech but some of his weaknesses include articulation errors he has not outgrown, and some pragmatic/intelligibility components. I sure hope five is not a cut off for progress! His particular areas of weakness were not really apparent until now.
We are also doing Tomatis, which is an integrated listening therapy. We’re doing it for auditory processing (which is related to attention) but I’ve heard firsthand that it can be beneficial for speech development issues. |
Anonymous
| SLP here. It's sounds like your daughter has made lots of progress. Going from 0 words to 4 word sentences is huge. If she has made progress in the past she will continue to make progress. Read books, work with your SLP, model longer sentences and keep doing what your doing. Ignore the negative people. They don't know what they are talking about. |
Anonymous
Listen to this advice. Some kids don’t catch up till even middle school but they can and do great. Get a good slp and do as much st as you can as early as you can. |
Anonymous
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Thomas Sowell's "Late Talking Children" features a bunch of case studies of children who were non-verbal until extremely late, despite being of normal to very high intelligence. A fair number seem to have had Asperger-y tendencies, or at least wound up in math/IT fields.
Read it with interest because a family member didn't speak until he was four, at almost the same time he learned to read. |
Anonymous
Ignore. I have a ASD son and am in that community- no one sounded like your DD at 4. When receptive and cognitive abilities are in tact, as long as there is ST to help with expressive, she should be fine. |