Reply to MERLD / receptive expressive language disorder and friendships

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[quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous]I'm so sad that my friendly, bubbly 6yo with MERLD can't make friends. She is such a sweetheart and wants friends so badly, but she just can't talk to the other girls at their level. Most are nice to her or at least civil, but of course some of the more advanced kids treat her like a moron. She perceives their condescension and knows they're being mean, even if she can't articulate exactly why. It's so painful to see. She hasn't been asked to a birthday party or playdate all year at her new school. Parents of older MERLD kids - does it ever get better? Did anything help? The more nervous she gets around other kids the more she talks below her level, so it's sort of a vicious cycle. Though even at her best she's still well below her peers.[/quote]

OP  - if you haven't already I would suggest continuous, ongoing speech therapy for her, as well as enrolling her in social skills groups. MERLD in my experience is something you have to stay on top of constantly - it's a tricky disorder that impacts our kids in so many ways.    :( [/quote]

This is a terrific suggestion.  We did not do speech therapy with our MERLD kiddo when he was young because it was ineffective and stressed him out.  However, when he turned 13, we felt he needed some help to "round out the edges" on his speech delay as well as some social skills coaching.  If you can find a good social skills group, it's worth its weight in gold![/quote]

How did you address the MERLD without ST? [/quote]

We worked with him at home doing modeling and recasting.  We also homeschooled, which essentially allowed us to do some version of ST all day, every day.  :) We also have seen the Camaratas (Dr. Camarata actually diagnosed our son's MERLD) for years.  Mary provided a lot of guidance on how to work with him at home.  The ST we started seeing with him when he was 13 diagnosed him with Social (Pragmatic) Communication Disorder, which we fully agreed with.  (he's too old for a MERLD dx now anyway, even if it were still in the diagnostic manual) She's helped us come up with ways to support him with social skills.  Addressing his anxiety has made a huge difference as well.  Now that he's 14, we see how much his anxiety caused issues when he was younger and couldn't communicate with us. We are so glad we went with our instincts and pulled him out of Early Intervention and speech therapy.  They did not help and in fact hindered his growth.  That is NOT always how it happens. In fact, ST really, really, really helps many (probably most) kids.  It just backfired badly for us.  I don't want it to sound like I'm saying don't do ST with your kiddo.  You should *always* try ST.  But just stay in tune with your kiddo's signals.  [/quote]

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